At First, Just A Little
by The Laughing Duchess
Summary: The fic that got away from me. What started as fluff is now a beast of a story juggling Slade and Mirakuru and these people that just won't stop coming back from the dead. Felicity still thinks that Oliver thinks she's in love with him though. So there's that.
1. Chapter 1

**AUTHORS NOTES: **Olicity fic. Takes place around 2x12. I mainlined Arrow around Christmas and have decided to go down with this ship. Not beta'd so all blame is mine. Title comes from the Ted Hughes poem, _The Other_, but the story isn't anywhere near as depressing. Promise. It's always hard when you start writing characters for the first time, so please feel free to let me know if you have any constructive crit. The plan is to make this the first part of a five times fic if there's any interest, so let me know that too if you have a second. Thanks for reading!

* * *

_She had too much so with a smile _

_you _ _took some._

_Of everything she had you had_

_Absolutely nothing, so you took some._

_At first, just a little._

_~Ted Hughes, The Others_

* * *

"I'm not in love with you, you know."

"What?" Oliver said, his head whipping up so fast she almost laughed.

It was late and she was about to head home for the night, but she felt compelled to clear this matter up before she left. She took a few steps into his office, her tight blue dress keeping her strides from their usual length as she approached his desk. Oliver was sitting in his chair, his mouth hanging open, with some papers he'd been skimming dangling from his fingers. He looked like she'd just told him Digg had run off to join the circus.

She sat in one of the seats across from him and crossed her legs. "I heard you, before," she said, smoothing the skirt over her knee. "When you were talking to Isabel."

Oliver swallowed. "Still not following you."

"Yeah, no, I'm getting that," she said, her hands folding into her lap warily. "I wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but I heard you telling Isabel that she shouldn't pay attention to the rumors about us because they were baseless."

Oliver nodded slowly and then suddenly seemed to become aware of what he must look like. He tossed the papers onto his desk and leaned back into his chair with practiced ease, all the tension seemingly draining from his body and his face going blank in a matter of seconds. A casual observer would think he was perfectly calm, but Felicity knew he was somewhat anxious because his right hand had started plucking at an imaginary bowstring. It was a weird habit, she'd noted, not that she kept track of all his weird habits, because my god, that would be a long frickin' list.

She started again. "I wanted you to know that you're right. There's nothing going on between us."

Oliver's head tilted a little in confusion but the corners of his mouth tugged up slightly. "Yes, Felicity. I am aware of that."

She shook her head quickly. "No. No, I mean, there's nothing going on between us even secretly."

Now he was just full on smiling. "I'm aware of that, too."

"No, you smug jerk," she laughed. "I'm trying to make it clear that I'm not sitting around mooning over you or anything. I don't go home at night or, well, dawn more accurately, and curl up with a pillow that I call Oliver and tell it about my day or anything."

His hand went still. "I…didn't think that you did."

"Good, because I don't. When I go home I think about food and ways to eat it and if I was naming my pillow after anyone it would be Channing Tatum."

"Channing Tatum? Really?"

"I'm not made of wood, Oliver. A girl can dream."

He smiled at that. "I guess I didn't think Channing Tatum was your type."

"Yes, well I didn't think you even knew who Channing Tatum was, so we've both learned something today." She smiled at him for a second before rising to her feet. "Anyway, I just wanted to clear that up in case you were wondering."

"Why would you think I was wondering?"

Her cheeks flushed and she took a deep breath. "Well, I mean, I did sort of have a tiny little crush on you when we first met."

Oliver at least had the decency to look surprised. "Wow, really, I had no-"

"Oh shut up," she said raising her hands in surrender. "We both know I did. But that was before I really knew you."

"And to know me is not to love me?"

"Exactly," she said, her hands dropping down to rest on her hips. She smiled for a moment and then her eyes went round and she started shaking her head furiously. "No, no, wait. That's not what I meant and you know it!"

He actually had the nerve to do a small fist pump. "The crush may be gone, but I can still fluster you."

She rolled her eyes. "A well made burrito flusters me too, so don't let it go to your head."

He laughed. "I won't."

She took a few steps towards the doorway and then turned back, catching him looking at her with a soft, fond expression. Sometimes that look being directed towards her annoyed her, because she thought it was the way he might look at a fluffy bunny or a small child, but today it made her heart swell a little. They'd come a long way since he'd walked into her cubicle a year and a half ago. Back then she'd never have guessed how much they'd come to mean to each other. He was her friend and she wanted him to be happy. She took a nervous breath and pushed her glasses up a little higher on her nose. "One more thing."

He lifted an eyebrow at her, but the amused twinkle in his eye didn't fade.

"I think Isabel likes you."

Oliver's eyebrows scrunched together. "What?"

"I think she like, _likes you_, likes you."

"Felicity-"

"Oh, come on. She's remarkably patient with you sometimes and she's super concerned about the state of our relationship, and well, of course there's that whole thing where she did actually sleep with you. For a while I thought she was trying to drive a wedge between us with all that, but I don't think that's true anymore. I think she's trying to figure out where she stands with you. And then I thought that maybe you couldn't give her an honest answer because you were worried about me."

Oliver leaned forward in his chair, "Felicity, I don't-"

She raised a hand at him. "No, let me finish. I've been thinking it's possible that I might have overreacted just the tiniest bit about the whole Isabel situation when we were in Russia. I mean, sexing her up was still a dumb thing for you to have done because, hello- we all thought she was trying to destroy you, but it's been a few months now and she hasn't grown horns or sacrificed a puppy or anything, so maybe she's just kind of a not so warm person who we jumped to conclusions about."

Oliver ran a hand over his face. "Felicity, why are you telling me this?"

"Because you keep telling her how platonic we are, but you always say it really quietly, like you think you'll hurt my feelings or something. And you don't need to worry."

Oliver sighed. She wouldn't say it was an exasperated sigh, but she had to admit it was kind of close. "It's not that I thought it would upset you to hear, Felicity. It's just that I didn't want to embarrass you. I didn't know if you'd heard the rumors. I wanted to protect you."

"Well, I don't need to be protected. At least not from this, because let me tell you, I've heard the rumors, like _all_ of the rumors. And some of them are terrible and some of them are actually kind of really good for my ego, but none of them are making me want to curl into a ball and die. And if all of a sudden you ended up dating someone else and everyone thought you'd finally come to your senses and dumped me, the new round of rumors wouldn't kill me either. So I just wanted you to know that if you wanted to," she paused for a moment and gritted her teeth slightly, "maybe spend some more time with Isabel… I'd be okay with that."

Oliver's eyebrows practically leapt off his forehead. "Felicity, we have no idea what Isabel is up to. It's nice that you want to believe she might not be what we're assuming she is, but that doesn't change anything. She's on the list."

Felicity shrugged. "Yes, well, that fly is definitely still in the ointment. But we don't know for sure that she's evil. What we do know is that she's smart and beautiful, obviously, and she spends a lot of time wondering about who you might be dating. If you like her, and seeing as she's the only woman you've shown an interest in for a while I'm guessing you might, maybe you should let her know." She looked at him and then worried her lip between her teeth as her mind continued to work over the situation. It was definitely not the best advice she'd ever given him, especially since she did kind of think Isabel was up to something. He would have to be super careful, because she could still turn out to be the devil in stiletto heels. It would be good for him to not be so isolated, though. He was one of the best guys she'd ever known and he deserved to have someone in his life. And it was always possible that he could work some sort of sex magic on Isabel and she'd forget all about whatever evil things she was supposed to be planning.

"Sex magic?"

Felicity's hand flew up to her mouth and her cheeks started burning as she realized what had happened. "Oh god! Oh no! Pretend that all of that stayed in my head and you never heard it. You do not have sex magic, Oliver Queen. I don't think that so don't go thinking that I'm thinking that you do. Not that I think you'd be bad in bed. I'm sure you'd be great, like really, really great. You've had plenty of experience, your body is beyond amazing, and god knows you've got stamina, but that's not magic it's just-"

She froze, her mouth hanging open as her brain suddenly put the brakes on the words that had been falling from her lips. Oliver's face was some strange combination of laughter and second hand embarrassment with a heaping dose of pity thrown in for good measure. Without hesitating she turned and ran as best she could out of the office. Her face was on fire. It had been a long time since she'd been so utterly inappropriate with him and it was humiliating to realize that she didn't have as much control over herself when it came to him as she thought she did.

She grabbed her bag off the floor and started shoving her tablet into it so she could get out of the office while she still had the tiniest shred of dignity left. She heard his footfalls as he walked into her desk space but she refused to look up at him.

"Felicity," he began, stopping almost directly beside her.

"Nope, nope," she said, grabbing a stapler from the desk and putting it in her bag as if that was a perfectly normal thing to have done. She quickly dropped the bag onto her chair. She didn't need to embarrass herself further by throwing in, oh say, the tape dispenser. "You don't need to come out here and talk to me, because I'm going home and when I come in tomorrow we're totally pretending that none of that ever happened."

He reached out and grabbed her arm gently, "Okay," he said, turning her to face him before placing his hands on her shoulders. "We can do that, but while I'm still allowed to remember, I want to thank you for saying all that." He took a small step towards her and wrapped his arms around her in a comforting hug. "Or, at least, some of that," he teased, his voice warm and low and ridiculously sexy...if she still thought about his voice in those terms. Which she did not. "You're a good friend and I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I made a mistake in Russia and I won't do it again. I would never knowingly jeopardize the safety of our team, and Isabel is too big of a risk."

She nodded against his chest in understanding, but when she went to pull back his arms tightened around her, keeping her firmly in place. "Hmm," she said as she relaxed into the stronger hug. "So we're just doing this hugging thing whenever now, huh?"

He laughed and his chest rumbled under her ear. "Yeah, I guess we are."

They stood there for a moment and Felicity internally kicked herself for not being able to let go of the awkwardness and fully enjoy the feeling of being held like that. She blew out a breath in frustration as the unfairness of it all washed over her.

He pulled back and looked at her. "What?" He asked, his hands sliding up over her arms and onto her shoulders.

"Nothing," she said, shaking her head.

"Tell me."

She placed a hand against his chest lightly. "What I said before, about my crush being over, was kind of a hypothetical statement, but this proves the theory, I guess," she said, sighing dramatically. "I didn't even enjoy that."

She thought he would laugh, but his body tensed under her fingers and his hands dropped from her shoulders. He looked at the ground and then took a step away from her.

"No, no, " she said reaching out and grabbing his arm this time. "I didn't mean it like that."

Oliver nodded, "It's okay."

"Oh god. No, no it's really not." This time she was the one who initiated the hug. She wrapped her arms around him, willing him to relax with the force of her embrace, but where a moment ago he'd felt easy against her, his body was now rigid with tension. She sighed against his shirt, her head tucked under his chin, and watched as her breath blew a small piece of lint off the material. "Man, I'm really on a roll tonight, huh? I'm not sure which was worse though, the part where I insulted your awesome hugging skills or the part where I actively encouraged you to start dating someone who might be a psychopath."

He nodded slowly, his chin brushing against the hair on top of her head as his arms came to wrap lightly around her waist. "It's definitely one of our more memorable conversations."

"For the record, I still think you can do better than Isabel. More importantly, though, your hugs are very enjoyable. I just meant that I don't feel like I need to report myself to HR for sexual harassment every time you touch me now."

He laughed. Finally. "Jesus, Felicity."

She looked up at him, her eyes wide and cheeks still flushed. "Oliver, at the risk of humiliating myself even further tonight, let's just say it's a good thing you can't read the thoughts that run through this mind." She lifted a finger to tap lightly against her temple, and when she let it drop her hand came to rest on his shoulder.

A charged silence settled over them and she waited, fully expecting him to wink at her or roll his eyes or to do something that would dismiss her confession and make the remaining tension between them dissolve away. What she did not expect was his thumb to start lazily stroking against her side or his blue eyes to darken and become fixated on her lips, which she found herself suddenly licking.

"Is it?" He finally asked, his voice rough and low and downright needy as his eyes stayed glued to her mouth.

"Yeah," she said and from the way his body tensed against her, she guessed her voice matched his own.

Everything went very still for a moment and then he was moving, his mouth heading towards hers and she only had time to think, "Holy shit," before his lips abruptly veered off course and landed on her cheek, slightly below her eye.

She'd thought the night couldn't get worse, but she'd been so, so wrong. They stood there, his slightly parted lips just glommed onto her face and she had no idea what to do. The only comforting thought she had was that as bad as this was for her, for the always smooth and in control Oliver Queen, it was probably much worse. She was about to extricate herself from his arms when he sort of jumped away from her. She'd have laughed at the absurdity of it all if his face hadn't looked so panicked. Instead she just wiped at the somewhat damp spot on her cheek with the back of her hand. "Well, thanks for that."

His mouth fell open. "Felicity, I'm so so-"

She did laugh this time. "Please don't apologize. If the night that I told you I had no feelings for you hadn't ended with you sort of sucking on my cheek for a minute, it wouldn't be my life."

She leaned down and picked up her bag and then headed towards the elevator with all the dignity she could muster. "Good night, Oliver. I'll see you in the morning," she called over her shoulder. A sense of calm washed over her as she walked and if she found herself surprised that she wasn't babbling like an idiot or throwing herself out a window to get out of there as quickly as possible, she didn't let it show. She had every intention of following her original plan. When she came back in the morning she would act as if none of this had happened. She pressed the down button and then turned back to look at her self declared partner, who was still standing over by her desk. Her breath caught when she realized he looked like his entire world might have just blown up.

"It's okay, Oliver," she said loud enough for him to hear. "No harm done. Really."

His head snapped up as if he hadn't realized she'd walked away from him and then he began moving unsteadily towards her. He looked almost scared, she thought, which was crazy. What did he have to be scared of?

He stopped a few feet away from her. "Felicity, please, I-"

"Have you ever watched Doctor Who, Oliver," she interrupted with forced brightness, "or Star Trek?"

"Felicity, if you would just-"

"What about Buffy?"

He looked at her, a spark of anger flashing in his eyes. "Felicity, do you really want to talk about tv right now?"

"Yeah," she said softly."I do. Because I love those shows, those sci fi or fantasy type ones. That's my jam, Oliver. I love any kind of story where if something goes really wrong, you don't have to get too scared because they can always find a big red reset button and get everything back to normal. The characters might die or do something terrible, but with one touch, whoosh! Mistake gone and lesson learned. The characters wake up back where they were before they messed it all up and no one else is ever the wiser."

"Okay." Oliver said cautiously, his fingers beginning to twitch again. His mouth was pulled tight and she could tell that his patience was wearing thin. If she was going to fix this, it had to be now.

"The thing is, Oliver, that I don't have too much in my life that's really great right now. I don't have many friends and my family and I…well, it's complicated. I'm not trying to throw myself a pity party or anything. I like my life. I'm smart and funny, I have my health, and a pretty phenomenal backside, and I'm grateful for all of it." She took a quick breath to make sure she was in control of herself before she began speaking again. "It's just that my world is pretty small these days and it's mostly made up of you, Diggle, and this whole crazy quest thing we're on. So I can't really afford to screw any of that up. Do you know what I mean?"

Oliver nodded, his hand relaxing as the doors to the elevator finally slid open behind her. "Yes, I do."

"Good because I'm getting into this elevator," she said, her lips curling into a small smile as she stepped inside the car. She turned and scanned the panel of buttons before pressing the one that kept the doors open. "And I'm going to pretend that one of these buttons is a reset button. And when I push it, all the stuff that happened tonight will no longer have happened. All we'll remember tomorrow is that I left here right after I gave you the file on Roselle Hydroelectric."

He nodded slowly, definitely not fully invested in her reset button theory yet, but looking much less terrified. It wasn't a perfect solution, but there was nothing else she could think to do that would make this less awkward. Denial was an old friend of hers and she was happy to welcome it back into her life if it would restore normalcy. "I swear Oliver, as far as I'm concerned none of this happened." His eyes met hers again and she shrugged.

"Thank you again, Felicity." His voice was soft and a little sad she thought, but he no longer looked lost and that was enough for her.

She nodded and then looked at the directory panel so she could select the button for the garage. Once she pressed it she released the door hold one. "Since all of this is going to be erased momentarily, though," she said, catching his eyes again, "I will let you in on a little secret."

A bit of uncertainty crept back into Oliver's features. "What's that?"

The doors of the elevator began to slide shut and she smiled. "That sex magic plan of mine was totally solid."

The doors closed and hid him from her view, but she swore she heard him bark out a laugh just as the elevator began to descend.

She examined the directory again and her eyes flared with excitement. There, just on the bottom, was a small red button that read, "STOP." She knew how silly it was to even think about pressing it. There would be alarms and she might even get in trouble for it. But in this moment she needed to believe it was possible and that all she had to do to make everything go back to normal was push.

"Why not?" She murmured to herself.

She placed her fingers against it and pressed.


	2. Chapter 2

I'd like to thank everyone for their kind words and warm reception. It's the only reason I've pushed on with this story. 2x13 threw me for a bit of a loop and I had a hard time figuring out how I could make this work in light of those events. I somehow ended up writing five different 2nd chapters for this story and it took me a while to decide which to use, which is why I need to also apologize for the delay in posting. The good news is that I found an actual plot for the rest of the series, which will make it's debut in the third chapter. The bad news is that this may cause the original premise of the series to change. It also forced this chapter into being a bit of a set up for the rest. I hope you'll enjoy it anyway.

* * *

It took them three days to find their balance again. And Felicity thought they didn't really find it so much as the earthquake machine showed up and scared them enough to forget there was something they weren't supposed to remember.

The past week had been one curveball after the next. One minute Moira Queen was announcing she was running for mayor, and the next Roy was finding out Oliver's secret and becoming part of the team. Less than a day later one Lance sister was poisoned with actual snake venom in a successful effort to draw the other out from hiding. While they were happy to have Sara return to the land of the living, the jilted lover/deadly assassin she'd brought with her hadn't been much fun. Throw in a kidnapping and the fact that Moira had made her doubt her relationship with Oliver and, basically, she'd had a no good, very bad, terrible kind of week.

She needed a break. Which was not going to happen anytime soon, so she'd settled on getting some frozen yogurt. Standing in front of the freezer section at the store, though, she changed her mind. Screw yogurt. Digg could nag at her about her diet all he wanted, but this was the kind of week stress eating was invented for. Ice cream would be her co-pilot tonight.

She scanned the case, noticing the pint of dulce de leche flirting with her from the top shelf and the new flavor of Ben and Jerry's whispering that her life wouldn't be complete until she tried it. She shook her head at them regretfully. "Sorry guys, but this is a job for mint chocolate chip," she mumbled, tossing a pint of it into her basket and then another for good measure. She imagined herself at home, sitting on her couch eating a big bowl of all that deliciousness, her tablet open to Shopbop, her tv tuned to Scandal, and Oliver pestering her to hand him the remote so he could check out SportCenter.

She rolled her eyes. _Okay, brain. Put a cork in it._

It wasn't the first time Oliver had snuck into a daydream of hers, but it had been a while since the last one. And this one was super clear and sort of insanely detailed. He was wearing dark jeans and a gray sweater, sitting on the floor with his legs stretched out in front of him and his back against the sofa. His hands were toying with a half finished glass of red wine and he was complaining that he didn't understand how she could possibly be paying attention to the show if she was shopping on her tablet at the same time. In her mind she heard herself protesting and then him teasingly brushing her off, saying what she was doing did not in fact count as multitasking. She could see herself finally giving in, handing him the remote, and ultimately smiling when he got so caught up in the discussion that he started arguing back at the screen. At the end of the night he'd kiss her, this time right on the lips, like a normal person. Not under her eye like a lunatic.

There were just a couple of flaws in this fantasy. First of all, her apartment was a SportCenter free zone. It wasn't even negotiable. Second of all, he didn't belong there. He'd never been to her apartment, had never stopped by to hang out, or check in on her, and, although they worked right below a bar, a bar that he flipping owned she might add, he hadn't once asked her to have a drink with him.

She took a deep breath. She wasn't supposed to want that sort of thing with him anymore anyway and the fact that she wanted it so badly at the moment was making her wonder if she'd been lying to herself for months about Oliver or if all this self doubt was just what came of having a pseudo boyfriend in a coma.

She focused in on the glass of the freezer in front of her and found her reflection. She pointed a finger at it and put on her stern face. "Oliver Queen is not your boyfriend," she whispered to herself harshly. The cute guy a few cases down looked at her like she was nuts, but it didn't bother her. She'd had success with this method before.

It was a mantra she'd repeated to herself over and over again last summer in order to justify why it was okay that Oliver had ditched her and Digg without a word. And it was true. Oliver hadn't owed her an explanation. He was not her boyfriend. Or Diggle's. And since that time, she'd found it useful in helping to clarify the unbelievably wide variety of situations she kept finding herself in with him. It could totally be molded to fit any scenario and she credited it for having kept her crush from spinning into something she didn't want it to be.

For instance, when he practically let her walk in on him and Isabel in Russia, it was totally fine. Why? Because Oliver Queen was not her boyfriend. And did it sound romantic when he told her he killed the Count because there was no other choice to make. Yes, but did that declaration make him her boyfriend? No, girlfriend, it most certainly did not. And sure, he might have gotten all pissy and jealous when she went to watch over Barry, but wasn't she happy she could basically tell him to go suck an egg when he snapped at her? Yes. And why could she say that? Because Oliver Queen was not her boyfriend.

She stopped pointing at her reflection, but gave herself one last knowing look and found that she felt much better. It was a good little crutch to have on hand when she was tired and stressed out and could only think about how his abs looked extremely lickable.

Earlier that night when he'd called he'd sounded pretty stressed and tired, too, but she'd been unable to say anything to make him sound less so. He'd been focused on how she was doing, which was sweet, but ridiculous. Her father had done his damage a long time ago and talking about him hadn't been what had gotten her so upset that morning. All her stress had been about whether she should tell Oliver about Thea, and as soon as she had things were better for her. Unfortunately, it meant that Oliver was suffering now. Not that he'd admit that. Instead of being a well-adjusted human and talking to a friend he was probably at the foundry beating the hell out of a training dummy. He was really very predictable.

She had a flash of the two of them in the warehouse basement. They'd be sitting at one of the desks sharing the pints she was buying and laughing about something innocuous. Something that had nothing to do with leagues of assassins, bad parents, or even fighting crime; just something that reminded them that, with or without a city to save, they were back on solid ground.

It was something that didn't have to remain a fantasy. Oliver Queen wasn't her boyfriend, but she could still bring him some ice cream tonight and remind him that he wasn't going to lose her either. It wasn't the lesson Moira Queen had been intending to teach her with her menacing words that week, but it turned out to be exactly what she had done.

* * *

"Oh god! You're naked!"

It wasn't the most tactful Felicity had ever been, but it had the benefit of being true. Sara was standing on one of the training mats, stark naked, and frozen in mid bend. Felicity felt bad for saying anything, she should have just turned and run. Clearly, the girl had been trying to rectify the nakedness of her situation since she'd been in the process of picking up her clothes.

Clothes that were scattered all over the floor.

Along with what looked like a pair of boxer briefs.

And some sneakers.

And also those cargo pants Oliver liked to work out in.

Which was weird because he wasn't in the habit of just leaving his pants lying around. Someone could trip on them, fall right into a row of sharp arrows and lose an eye or something.

She scanned the room processing the scene before her. Could it be a training exercise? Like, how fast can you get into your vigilante gear in an emergency? Or maybe out of the gear? Oliver was surprisingly quick doing that, but she'd never thought about him practicing.

Sara stood up, a black t-shirt clutched against her. It wasn't big enough to offer much coverage. "Wow," the girl laughed. "I feel like I'm 15 and my mom just walked in."

Felicity nodded. And then nodded again. And then…oh, god.

Oliver's pants.

Sara's _everything._

Her stomach flipped and her heart started pumping furiously, the sound of her own blood rushing though her ears as she put two and two together. She clutched nervously at the paper bag full of ice cream in her hand.

In retrospect, maybe she should have expected to walk in and find Sara like that, but the truth was the possibility had never even crossed her mind. It seemed silly now, not to have realized. She'd just always thought Oliver had taken Sara on the yacht as a whim. That who the girl was hadn't really mattered so long as there was a girl.

She'd never given much thought about their time on the island together either, probably because he rarely talked about it. She'd assumed his actions in regard to Sara since she'd come back from the dead had been motivated by guilt. It was pretty obvious that she'd had it all wrong.

Sara pulled the shirt over her head and tugged it down as far as it would go and then they just stood there facing each other. "Well, this is awkward," the younger Lance sister said before she finally bent back down to pick up her underwear. Sara shimmied the small scrap of fabric back on rather gracefully, which Felicity actually found kind of impressive. She'd have been hopping around like a deranged kangaroo trying to get her clothes back on if Digg or someone had walked in on her having sexy fun times with Oliver.

Oliver.

All the blood in her body seemed to rush back out of her head. "Oh, god! Oliver," she gasped. "He's still here right?" She looked up at the ceiling and then down at the floor, uncertain where her eyes should land, almost terrified of settling somewhere and seeing something she shouldn't. "Is he also naked?"

Sara grinned and picked up her pants. "Relax. He just stepped in the shower."

Felicity nodded, blinking again. Her eyes were welling and she had the sudden realization that she was about to cry. She took a breath, and then another as she willed herself to calm down. Crying was not a rational response to this situation. Crying was not going happen.

_Oliver Queen is not your boyfriend_, she told herself. Although he wasn't Sara's either, right? Especially since Sara was a lesbian now, wasn't she? Or maybe this meant was she bi? Did that even matter? Sara and Oliver were adults and could do whatever they wanted. Sure, the idea of them being together was like a knife going through her soul at the moment, but that was her problem, not theirs. She wondered how long this had all been going on. If Sara and Oliver were back together he had every right to have kept it a secret, especially after the way she'd reacted about Russia. She would do better this time. Make him see that what he did with his penis had absolutely no affect on her. She blushed at her own thoughts and shook her head slightly to clear them. She could also be overreacting. This might have been some sort of random comfort hookup too, old friends helping each other through a tough time.

_Act casual_, she thought as Sara slid into a pair of jeans. "I'm relaxed, you know, this is fine. Not that you need me to tell you that. It's just unexpected. To me, not necessarily for you. It could be old news for you. Not for me, though. Brand new news happening here." She swallowed hard. "I came by to check on Oliver because of… reasons, but now I see that was unnecessary. Here," she said, extending out the arm that held the bag, "have some ice cream."

Sara walked over, confusion on her face as she measured Felicity carefully with her eyes. "Thanks," she said, taking it gently. "That was nice of you."

Felicity shrugged. "He had a bad day."

Sara nodded and then peeked into the bag. "Mmm, I haven't had ice cream in ages." She turned away from Felicity, heading towards one of the desks. She plopped into the chair and spilled the bag over, the pint-sized containers rolling out onto the surface. "It's one of the secrets no one ever tells you about being an assassin. You rarely get to eat dessert."

Felicity had no idea how to take that. Did dessert make you look weak in the eyes of your enemy? Sara looked inside the bag and pulled out some spoons.

Should she ask Sara to elaborate? Was this a bonding moment? Was it standard protocol that assassins killed people over dinner and then had to flee before the meal was done?

Sara turned and offered her back one of the pints, but she couldn't bring herself to accept it. "No thanks, I don't eat ice cream."

Whoa, now there was a lie. A lie easily disproved by the evidence currently sitting in Sara's very own hands. She was supposed to have given it up, though. Maybe walking in on this was her karma for cheating? She should have stuck with the yogurt. "Not always. I mean, I try not to eat it as a general rule. Not because I'm an assassin, obviously, but because Digg's been training me and he says I eat like a toddler. He's become a sugar Nazi. And a carb Nazi. Pretty much an anything fun with food Nazi. He thinks I should eat like a cave person."

Sara gave her a funny look as she pried off a lid. "That sounds rough."

Felicity watched the woman take a small bite. Twenty minutes ago that ice cream had seemed like such a good idea, a nice little private joke between her and Oliver, but somehow it had all gone wrong. She and Oliver were supposed to be the ones sitting there bonding, not she and Sara. Suddenly the idea of Oliver and her hanging out there was as farfetched as the one she'd had of him in her apartment. Had she really thought he would want to sit around with her like that? What was she, five? Did she want him to braid her hair too? You could tell just by looking at him that he'd rather have sex than eat ice cream.

Which was a ridiculous thought because that was true for everyone. Well, maybe not clergy. But definitely true for one Felicity Smoak, so why was she beating herself up over this? If she'd had the option tonight, she'd have voted for that kind of workout on the mats too. It was just the shock and probably the nakedness that had her a little freaked out. Usually only Oliver was topless. She couldn't have known Sara would visit him at the foundry that night. She'd just been reunited with her family for the first time in six years. She shouldn't have been there at all.

"I guess it didn't live up to the fantasy."

Sara choked on her ice cream. "What?"

_Oh for God's sake,_ Felicity thought. One day she and her brain would really have to have a talk about not firing synapses at her mouth without consulting her. "Your visit with your family," Felicity rushed. "Not the sex with Oliver, I'm sure that was great. Super, even. Fantasy met and exceeded, I would imagine. Not that I do. Imagine. Having sex with…Just," she took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a second, letting the right words finally spill out of her mouth, "after so many years of being away from your family, I'm surprised you're not still with them."

Felicity watched in horror as Sara's eyes filled with tears. "Oh, oh, hey," she said, walking towards her. "I'm so sorry. That was stupid and badly phrased and it's none of my business. I didn't mean to upset you." She reached over the desk, grabbing a tissue from a box and offering it to Sara.

The girl took it and sniffed, her voice soft and sad when she finally spoke. "It's okay. I'm really fine. Laurel just hates me. Some things never change."

_They might if you stopped sleeping with her boyfriend,_ Felicity thought. And then she panicked, hoping to God those words hadn't been spoken aloud.

"She has every right to, I know," Sara continued. "I was never a very good sister."

Felicity patted her gently on the shoulder, deeply ashamed to have had such a bitchy thought. "People make mistakes. And that was a long time ago."

Sara laughed, low and bitter as she stabbed the spoon into the ice cream and pushed it away. "I guess it was too much to hope she might just be glad I'm alive."

"I'm sure she is, deep down, but Sara-" Felicity paused. It probably wasn't her place to say anything, but that had never stopped her before. "There's more to it than that. You let them think you were dead. For a long time and that's got to be so confusing. If I were Laurel, I'd be angry too. I'm not saying it's entirely right, or that it's permanent, but I'd be angry."

"I didn't know how to tell them," Sara shrugged. "And I didn't want them to see what I'd become."

Felicity sighed. "You and Oliver really are two peas in an extremely depressing pod. I know you've done bad things. Oliver's done some bad things, too. Nothing can change that. But you've also done some pretty awesome and kick ass things. If you keep doing that you won't have to be ashamed anymore. And Laurel will forgive you. There's bound to be a statute of limitations for stealing your sister's boyfriend, right? She and Oliver even get along now, sort of. And it's not like he's some great prize, what with the brooding and the penchant for eye makeup. She should probably thank you."

Sara smiled weakly. "Probably," she agreed.

Felicity thought about how messed up the whole situation was. If Sara and Oliver were going to continue whatever it was they were doing, Laurel was going to be pissed for a great deal longer. Felicity wouldn't want to be in any of their shoes. "It's going to take time, though. And she's going through her own stuff right now too. That doesn't stop just because you came home. She needs your support. The forgiveness will come."

"Do you really think so?"

She didn't know. If she were Laurel she'd probably wipe out Oliver's bank accounts and add Sara to the no fly list, but Laurel probably wasn't that good with computers. She heard Sara take a shaky breath and figured she should probably say something more comforting than that. "If you were my sister, I'd forgive you."

Sara stood and Felicity found herself being hugged quite fiercely. It was surprising, but nice, she thought, being hugged when no one was running off to die somewhere. She inhaled and froze, her heart breaking a little when she noticed that Sara smelled like Oliver. "It's crazy late," she started, releasing the other girl a little abruptly. "I should go home. Oliver will be out soon. He won't be expecting me."

Sara looked at her nervously. "Felicity, I just, I don't really know what the deal is with you and Oliver."

Felicity shook her head slowly back and forth. "There's no deal. There's just me and then there's Oliver. No dealing. I swear."

Sara nodded slowly. "That may be, but I know that you're close. Close enough that I I'm wondering if I need to apologize for anything right now."

"That's not at all necessary, Sara."

"I'm going to be staying in town and helping you guys if I can. I don't want there to be any weird feelings between us. I like you. And I know how much you mean to him."

Felicity smiled. "I like you too. And there won't be weird feelings. Promise."

"Are you sure? I've kind of seen the way you look at him."

Those words hit her hard and she blinked in surprise. "Wow. Wow, you know, I'm not sure what you all think you're seeing but, whatever it is, you're reading it wrong. If you were to ask me if I was plotting his murder, I might understand, because the number of times I've thought 'I'm going to kill you for this' when looking at Oliver is pretty much infinite, while the number of times I've thought 'I love you' is closer to zero."

Sara's body went very still, but her eyes narrowed a little. It was unnerving. Oliver got that way when he was focusing in on a target and Felicity had a moment of panic that Sara would see something she herself wasn't even sure existed. "I'm sorry. I'm just really tired of people telling me they know how I feel about Oliver better than I do. He's my friend and I admire him, I do. And I don't know how exactly it is that I look at him, but I think he's a good man. And most of the time people treat him like he isn't, so I do my best to remind him that they're wrong. It doesn't mean I'm circling his name in hearts in my notebook."

She had actually done that once. But she'd crossed it out right away and she certainly wasn't going to backtrack now.

Sara studied her and then nodded. "I believe you. I guess I'm just a little sensitive. I've always had to share him with someone and this time I don't want to."

Felicity was caught off guard, but nodded as if that wasn't one of the saddest sentences she'd ever heard. "As far as I'm concerned, he's all yours." Sara seemed to accept that. "And on that note, I'm really gonna go now," Felicity said.

Sara nodded and sat back down at the desk, picking up the ice cream and toasting Felicity with it. "Thanks for this."

Felicity nodded. "Sure." She turned and walked to the steps. She was exhausted, but there were a few things she should take care of when she got home. She could put off organizing Oliver's QC expense reports and receipts for another day or two, but there was an email from Barry's foster mother that she really needed to respond to, and she definitely needed to clear last month's security footage off her hard drive.

Her foot froze as it landed on the second step and she pivoted back to face Sara again.

"Oh, um. Hey, not to be weird, but what do you think the odds are that someone came in here while you guys were…distracted," she asked, walking purposefully back to the desk. Sara eyed her warily.

"It's just that," Felicity continued, as she booted up her computer, "we have cameras in here running 24/7. I usually keep the recordings for a month, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that it was just you two going down in here tonight." She cringed inside her head at the choice of words, but pushed herself to continue as she looked over at Sara. "So unless you want a copy as a souvenir, I'm going to erase it."

Sara looked deep in thought for a moment and Felicity panicked. "That was a joke. I wasn't really offering you a copy."

"Too bad." Sara smiled, her eyebrows waggling up and down in a way that was teasing and sort of delightful. Felicity could see why Oliver liked her. She focused back on the computer and after a few clicks, the file was gone.

"All done," she said, standing up and facing Sara. Unfortunately, the woman was staring past Felicity and a stupid grin was spreading over her face.

Crap.

She turned, hoping to God he at least had some pants on. "Hi, Oliver."

"Felicity?"

She should have wished he'd been wearing more, because while he was wearing soft looking track bottoms, he certainly wasn't wearing a shirt. _Big surprise there,_ she thought. "I just popped in to grab this," she said, reaching onto the desk and lifting the first object she touched. For a moment she was afraid she'd come away with the tissue box, but she'd gotten lucky and was holding her external hard drive. Every once in a while things actually went her way.

Sara moved next to her and threw an arm around her shoulder. "It's okay, Felicity." She smiled at the younger girl and then turned to face him. "Cat's out of the bag, Ollie. We're busted."

Oliver paused for a moment as the reality of her being there sunk in, but then he smiled at them both and shrugged a little. "I'd have told her tomorrow anyway. We don't keep secrets." There was weight to his words that Sara probably found strange, and Felicity wasn't quite sure she believed him exactly, but she appreciated the thought in light of the day they'd had. In fact, she felt a rush of relief. There'd been a lot of changes and the team was definitely expanding rapidly, but she suddenly knew that everything between them was going to be fine. She was going to go home and get a full night of sleep and in the morning she'd be over whatever weirdness she'd been feeling tonight. She'd text Digg with the news first thing and then they'd hash it all out over their afternoon coffee. Knowing Digg, though, he'd probably focus more on the fact that she'd been intending to eat so much sugar and less on the fact that these two were getting it on. Gossip wasn't really his strong suit. She smiled back at Oliver. "I was just on my way out."

He nodded. "I'll walk you up."

They made their way in silence to the landing at the top of the stairs. When she turned towards the alarm keypad, he reached out and grabbed her hand nervously. "You okay?"

"I'm not the one you should worry about. Diggle works out on those mats. You need to buy him some flowers or something."

He blushed. "I'll take that under consideration."

She shifted on her feet apprehensively. "How long have you two been, you know, together?" It was ridiculously nosy to ask, but she really wanted an answer.

"I'm not entirely sure we are together. It just sort of happened." He lifted his shoulders and looked down at his feet.

She shouldn't have been as pleased by that news as she was, but the idea that Oliver might have been hiding this hadn't sat well with her. "I'm sorry I interrupted. Next time put a sock on the doorknob or something. I wasn't expecting her to be here."

He frowned a little. "We both had rough nights with our families."

"You want to tell me what happened with your mom?"

He leaned back against the wall. "I told her I'd keep up appearances for Thea's sake and for the campaign, but that we don't have a relationship anymore."

"That can't have gone over very well."

"She was upset."

"She didn't disinherit you or anything did she?"

Oliver titled his head as he gave it a small shake. "And here I was, all this time, thinking you were only interested in me for my body."

She rolled her eyes. "Joke all you want. Your family pretty much bankrolls this operation. If you get cut off from that, it's going to be a big change. We can do it, but it'll be harder."

He nodded, falling back into serious mode without skipping a beat. "I don't think we need to worry about it for now. She's not going to try to drive me further away. I can use her fear of losing me permanently to keep us going if I need to."

He looked tired. And sad. And it bothered her that she might have been the cause of that. "Oliver, are you sure that's how you really want things to be? I mean, I get it, it sucks that she lied, but she was trying to protect her daughter."

Oliver's thumb started flicking against his fingers and his voice grew colder. "She was trying to protect herself. She hasn't been honest about one thing since I came home. I can't trust anything she tells me."

She wasn't entirely sure Oliver had the moral high ground on this one. "You haven't been honest with her since you came home either, though," she said cautiously.

"And whose fault is that, Felicity?" He asked sharply. "She turned me into this- she and my father and Malcolm Merlyn. Maybe they didn't mean for me to end up on that island, maybe they didn't mean for me to suffer like that for all those years, but I paid the price for their actions. I'm still paying it." His hands clenched into fists. "My lies are not the same."

Oliver's eyes were heavy on hers as he searched for absolution. His chest rose and fell rapidly and she took in the angry trails that stretched across his skin. She knew all his scars well, had spent so much time in their presence that she'd long ago stopped thinking about how they'd come to be there when she looked at him. She couldn't prevent those thoughts from crowding back in now. Her eyes misted up at the idea of anyone hurting him. "I know that."

He exhaled a shaky breath. "And she threatened you."

A part of her had been waiting for him to say it, wanting to know if he saw it like she did, but now she felt badly for needing the reassurance. The longing to know he'd understood why she hadn't told him right away was almost embarrassing and was definitely selfish. She was used to family disappointing her, but Oliver had grown up secure in an elaborate lie, a lie she thought he still probably needed to believe in. "It's not like it was with a gun or anything," she began lightly. "She probably thought I was going to blackmail her or try to hurt you. She doesn't even know we're really friends."

He exhaled loudly through his nose. "Only you would defend my mother, Felicity." He reached out for her hand again. "I would never let her hurt you, you know that right?"

She nodded, squeezing his hand back and letting him have his cave man moment. "I'm not afraid of your mother. The worst part of all this for me is just that I won't be invited to any more swanky parties at the house. Your mom might have some questionable traits, but her ability to choose the perfect hors d'oeuvre is not one of them."

"If it makes you feel better, I won't be going to any more of them either."

She doubted that. Moira Queen had committed many, many sins, but hiding Thea's paternity was probably the least of them. Oliver loved his mother and he had spent too much time trying to save her from herself to walk away now. In all probability this separation would pass. In regards to her though, she figured Moira's memory would be very long. "You'll have to go to some of them, Oliver.

He smiled. "Well if I do, I'll bring you some canapés."

"I'm gonna hold you to that," she said dropping his hand as she turned and raised the lid up from the alarm key pad.

"Felicity, are you really okay with all this?"

She was a little shocked that he would ask her again and she paused before answering. Two weeks ago she'd just have given him a confident yes. Now, she wasn't exactly sure what she felt, but standing there and talking with him had made her feel like they would be back on solid ground again soon. Girlfriends might come and go, but she wasn't going to lose him. And he should know he wouldn't lose her either. She smiled at him. "Yeah we're good."

"Finding Sara here tonight probably surprised you."

"It's fine, Oliver. I like Sara. And while I'm excited to have some more estrogen around here, it's not like it's any of my business."

He let his head fall back against the concrete wall. "I wouldn't say it's none of your business. Your opinion matters. I don't want you to be upset."

"I'm not upset," she said, punching in the security code to release the door. It beeped at her slowly and she turned back to face him. "I'm not in love with you," she reminded him gently. "Don't you remember?"

He paused, watching her for a moment before answering. His voice was low and thick with something she couldn't quite identify. "I thought we were supposed to forget everything before we went time traveling."

She ignored the emotion in his voice, ignored the way it made her heart jump a little in her chest. "We didn't time travel," she said quietly. "We reset time. There's a big difference. Huge, actually, but your point is taken."

It would probably be best for her to just keep her answer flippant, but the way he was looking at her made her think he might need more than that. He still looked nervous and she wondered if her declaration of being over him had more of an impact than she had anticipated. She took a deep breath. "You told me earlier that I wasn't going to lose you. I hope you know that you're not going to lose me either, even if I'm not in love with you. I wasn't helping you because of the whole crush thing. I believe in what you're doing Oliver. I believe in you. I might freak out a little over the boneheaded things you do sometimes, but I'm not going anywhere."

He smiled. "That's good to know."

She nodded and then pushed open the door to step outside. She was surprised when he followed her out. "What are you doing?"

"I'm walking you to your car," he said, looking at her as if it were obvious, which she guessed it was.

"Oliver, you don't even have shoes on. Or a shirt for that matter."

He shrugged, "I lived for five years without shirts or shoes. And it was colder there that it is here."

She sighed loudly. "You know, you're going to be sorry one day when you finally overplay that whole trapped on an island thing."

"Maybe," he smiled. "But that day is not today, is it?"

She laughed, shaking her head no as his hand found the small of her back and they made their way out to her car.


	3. Chapter 3

I almost rewrote chunks of this because there are parts that are very similar to what aired last night. Which is why you should always try to beat the episode, kids. Oy. Anyway, this chapter is a beast, I apologize for that, but I hope you'll enjoy it! I wanted to get this out as quickly as possible, so I haven't taken the time to reply to anyone who commented on chapter 2. I will rectify that immediately. Please know I was incredibly touched by your wonderful and thoughtful words! Thank you! I anticipate it taking a week before the next chapter goes up.

Just a heads up that there's character death in this chapter. Shit is about to get real.

* * *

The night she left Oliver and Sara at the foundry Felicity dreamt, for the first time in a long time, about her father.

The dream was a variation on the only real memory she had of him. She was small, about four, and they were walking along the beach by their house in Coast City, picking up seashells and placing them in a jar. Her tiny fingers dug into the wet sand and she looked up, watching as he slowly walked into the surf. The waves rushed in and over his legs while he stood looking out at the horizon.

"Felicity," he called back to her, his voice unfamiliar, "I want you to know that I'll always be with you. You'll never lose me. You know that, don't you?"

She nodded and was surprised to find she had transformed into her adult self. She stood, abandoning the jar of shells, and walked out to meet him. When she reached his side the man that had been her father a second ago had morphed into Oliver. "You're a liar," she told him coldly.

His eyelashes were thick with tears and he stared straight ahead. "I didn't mean to be."

The world around them seemed to pulse and when it settled they were no longer in Coast City. The sea swirling around their knees began churning dark and grey as the high peaks and forests of Lian Yu came into focus. A menacing shadow formed in the swells of the water and ever so slowly began easing its way in their direction. She knew she needed to warn Oliver, but when she opened her mouth she found she could no longer form words. The darkness picked up speed, spreading around them and she pointed at it furiously, but Oliver wouldn't look at her. She tugged on his arm desperate to pull him back to the shore, but he wouldn't budge.

"Felicity," he said, his eyes locked on the horizon. "I can't fight what's coming."

"We have to go back to shore, Oliver. Please," she begged, words finally spilling from her lips.

He turned to face her, his blue eyes locking onto hers. "You failed me."

The shadow swarmed and Oliver's legs were yanked out from under him, his entire body disappearing into the sea in an instant.

She screamed herself into waking.

* * *

She had the dream again and again. There were minor changes every time, but the ending never altered. Sara told her recurring dreams were just her subconscious working something out and that the dream would stop when her brain finally found the solution. Each night she placed her head on her pillow with a sense of dread, but she would still close her eyes and tell herself there was no reason to worry.

"You have a good brain, a smart brain. Everything will be fine," she whispered confidently into the darkness.

Night after night she gave herself the pep talk. The dream came anyway.

* * *

On the day Oliver casually mentioned that he and Sara were planning to move in together, Diggle popped in unexpectedly during her lunch hour. He pulled a chair up to her desk with sympathetic eyes and she rolled hers back at him in response. She sometimes really hated the way these two talked about her behind her back.

He hesitated for a moment and then pressed on using the gentlest voice she'd ever heard from him. "So, you okay?"

"I haven't been sleeping much, but other than that I'm fine." She said, before adopting his concerned tone. She placed her hand over his. "Are you okay?"

Diggle gave her a side eye. "Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

She smiled and began pulling her food out of the white paper sack it had come in. "My sentiments exactly."

"Fine," he said, shaking his head. "If that's how you want to play it, go right ahead."

Ugh. He was the worst when he whipped out the passive aggression. She really, really didn't want to ask what he meant by that, but her mouth was a traitor. "What does that mean?"

"You tell me," he shrugged, taking a sip of the coffee he'd brought with him.

Well, that was infuriating with the benefit of also being annoying. "Look," she sighed. "I'm not playing anything. It's not exactly surprising that two hot people have decided to cohabitate. We all know they've been having sex. Lot's of sex. Lot's of really great and probably very acrobatic sex."

"So you think, what? This is just easier for them than a booty call?"

She shook her head. "No, Digg. Somehow, I don't think our friends are moving in together because booty calls are beyond them. They care about each other." She pulled the plastic wrapped utensils and a stack of napkins out of the bag and placed them next to the white styrofoam container that held her food, but didn't open any of it up.

He lifted an eyebrow. "Hmph."

"What?"

He leaned back in his seat. "Nothing."

"Wait. Are you actually upset about them moving in together?"

"I don't think it's the greatest idea in the world, no."

"Oh, man," she teased. "You're not, like, secretly in love with Sara are you?"

He stared at her and then laughed. "You know, contrary to what you or Oliver seem to think, it is possible to spend a little time with someone and not develop a romantic attachment to them."

She cocked her head and smiled. "Did you just try to burn me? Am I supposed to feel burned? Because I hate to tell you this, but I feel nothing."

"All I'm saying is that it was around this time last year he tried getting back with the sister. It's messed up."

She shrugged. "As Jaime Lannister once said, 'We don't get to choose who we love.'"

"Well, he would know about sisters, I guess."

Felicity's mouth hung open. "Oh my god."

Diggle smiled. She leaned over and smacked him affectionately on the arm. "Look at you with the pop culture reference."

"Alright, that's enough."

"I'm so proud right now. I might cry."

"I can leave, you know. There's a door right over there," he said, lifting his hand and pointing at the fire door.

"Fine, fine." She watched him for a second, nervous to admit to any hesitation about the couple. Everything she said always got blown so out of proportion. "Maybe this whole thing with Sara is just the tiniest bit messed up," Felicity conceded hesitantly. "But she's a good egg and they seem happy."

Diggle interrupted her a little sharply. "Happy, huh?"

He was blowing her mind. Usually she couldn't get him to gossip about anything, but today he was just going for it. "You don't think so?"

He swirled the coffee cup in his hands a little. "As messed up as it is for Oliver to put himself back in the love triangle from hell, it's even more so for Sara to put herself back in that position."

"What position?"

"Being the other woman."

"He's not with Laurel anymore." Digg shot her a look as if what he was trying to say was obvious. "Sorry. I'm not at all getting what you're trying to put down."

"It's a lesson I learned with Carly. You can't be with a person who idealizes someone else. You'll never live up to them."

She frowned. "If you're trying to imply-"

He shook his head. "Oh, I'm not trying."

She laughed. "When has Oliver ever idealized me?"

He smirked. "Sometimes I forget you weren't around him much when he met you. There wasn't anything he thought you couldn't do. There still isn't."

"Yeah, well, my kung fu's the best. Doesn't mean Sara's needs to lose any sleep over it."

Diggle shot her another look. "With the history they have, she'd be crazy not to."

She shook her head. "Why are we even talking about this? I don't want things to be like that. Sara and I aren't the Desperate Housewives of Starling City and I'm not even hung up on Oliver anymore. I like Sara. She's cool. I respect her.

He nodded. "Me too. But just in case there was any doubt," he said, looking at her knowingly, "I'm in your corner." He reached over and squeezed her hand quickly. "Always."

She smiled at her friend, a wave of affection washing over her when she realized that he'd forced himself through that entire conversation just so he could tell her that. Men were ridiculous. "Thank you."

He leaned back in his chair. "You're too good for him anyway."

She laughed. "I don't know about that, but I'm definitely not his type."

"And Sara is?"

She nodded. "Oh come on. You put Laurel and Helena in a blender, and Sara's what you'd pour out."

Digg shrugged. "I was thinking she was too stable."

Her phone chimed and she checked the text with a sigh. "Ugh. He's mad I didn't bring him lunch."

Digg lifted an eyebrow towards her. "He's been in that meeting for hours. I bet all the other assistants brought their bosses some food."

Her smile was right on the border of sickeningly sweet. "Well, maybe he should hire one of them, then."

"Speaking of lunch," he said, looking down at her white container. "What are you eating today, Ms Smoak?" He leaned over and popped the top open, revealing chicken fingers and French fries.

She flushed with guilt. "I swear I've got a side salad in the fridge." She did not have a side salad in the fridge. She had a cupcake. It was carrot cake, though, so it was sort of salad adjacent.

He looked at her and shook his head. "You know you're killing me with this, right?"

She sighed. "Remember when we used to eat Big Belly like, every other day, and you never said a word about not eating the bun? I miss those days."

"No, what I remember is you telling me after the Count abducted you that you wanted to be able to defend yourself. If you're serious about the training we're doing and you want to get strong you need to knock this shit out."

She looked from him to her food and then back. "That's not fair, throwing my own abduction at me so I sound like an idiot if I argue with you. Besides, this is chicken," she said weakly, "and last time I checked French fries were potatoes, which are still vegetables. Frying them didn't alter their genetic makeup." It was the same theory she had about the carrot cake. They were in a cake, but they were still carrots. It totally counted.

Diggle didn't respond. He simply looked at her the way she thought a father might look at a child he'd caught sneaking home after curfew. Not that she would know. She'd never had a curfew. Or a father, really. She heard the chime of the elevator arriving at the floor and the gentle hiss of the doors sliding open. "Digg, the whole no sugar, no flour, no McDonald's thing? It's crazy. It's totally impossible to live like that," she said turning to face their approaching visitor.

"I don't know," Oliver said, striding towards her desk. "I did the caveman diet thing for five years. It worked for me," he said, flexing his arm muscles a little like the dork he was, but still managing to look like some sort of walking GQ spread.

"Whatever, Oliver," she mumbled. "I saw you eat a pop tart yesterday."

He stood next to her and then quickly reached down, plucking the biggest chicken finger from the container. She tried to grab it back, but he shoved the whole thing into his mouth. "Oliver!"

He chewed it for a second and then winked at her. "Thanks for getting lunch."

She shook her head. "What are you even doing back? You're scheduled to be doing performance reviews for at least another hour."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell. "Thea texted. She and Roy had a fight and broke up.

"Uh oh. What happened?" Felicity asked.

Oliver shrugged. "I don't know, but she can't get him to leave the property." He continued chewing for a moment and then swallowed. "He made a bit of a mess." He showed them the picture his sister had sent him of the front doors to the mansion. They were off the frame and basically shattered. "Apparently he's calmer now, but she could still use our help."

Digg stood up and straightened his tie. "Let's go." Oliver clapped him on the shoulder as they began heading to the elevator.

"Be careful," she called after them lightly. "Try not to let him beat you up too badly."

Diggle turned and quickly jogged back. He leaned over the desk and slowly grabbed a huge handful of fries.

"Hey," she cried out.

"What?" He asked, popping one into his mouth. "I thought you said you missed this." He feigned going back for more and she snatched up the container, holding it close to her body. "Both of you need to get out of here like, right now," she laughed.

It would be a long time before she laughed like that again.

* * *

For Felicity getting dumped would have led to a few too many shots of tequila and some ill-advised drunk texting, but for Roy it ended up being a bit more extreme. For three days he tore through Starling City, leaving a trail of badly beaten hooligans and broken bricks behind him. When Oliver and Sara finally tracked him down, he showed no interest in rejoining the fold. They came back to the foundry quite a bit worse for the wear.

Diggle worked on Sara's ribs while Felicity stitched up the deep cut that had split Oliver's left eyebrow. "Oh man," she said, leaning back and staring at the row of uneven stitches she'd just sewn into his skin, "I don't want to alarm you, but the name Quasimodo keeps springing to mind."

Oliver frowned slightly. "Who's Quasimodo?"

Felicity paused for a moment and then sighed. She really hoped he was kidding. "_The Hunchback of Notre Dame_?"

"What's that? More Shakespeare?" He grinned.

Felicity shook her head, not entirely certain if he was teasing or not, and then leaned back in to trim one of the stitches. "Let's just say it's a good thing you're pretty," she mumbled softly, tilting his face towards the light and examining her handy work. It was definitely going to leave a mark. "Although after this patch up job, it might be a good thing that you're rich."

Oliver looked a little panicked and she smiled just a bit when she realized it was his vanity kicking in. He eyed her nervously. "Is it really that bad?" She grabbed a small compact from her purse and angled it so he could take a look. His face went a little ashen and she felt a pang of guilt for having been amused.

"Sorry. Do you want to go see a plastic surgeon?"

"It's fine."

"Oh, come on, this isn't even a tough one to explain on an admitting form. How rare is that?" He took another look in the mirror, clearly weighing exactly how much facial disfiguration he could live with, but she couldn't tell which way he was leaning. She put her hand on his shoulder. "It might be nice to go to the hospital and have someone with an actual medical degree stitch you up. It's your face, don't you want it to be all handsome again someday?"

He closed the mirror with a snap and shook his head. "It's not worth the trouble. Don't worry about it."

Preserving that face was totally worth it in her opinion, and probably the opinion of every other woman alive, but compared to the rest of the scars on his body, she could see why it wouldn't faze him. "Oliver, it looks like you got stitched up in a back alley, which isn't really that far from the truth. You do know that the company pays for health insurance every month, right? It's like a platinum plan too. People might be suspicious about why you didn't use it." She stopped and thought for a moment. "That would actually be a really lame way for us to get made."

He grimaced and hopped off the table, heading over to Sara. "Felicity thinks I'm ugly now."

Sara grinned up at him, her eyes taking in the jagged new stitches as Diggle continued wrapping her ribs. "Hmm, she's crazy," his girlfriend teased. "I like a man with scars."

He leaned over and kissed her gently before holding out his hand for the tape and taking over for Digg. Felicity turned away, picking up the bloody debris from the table and making sure it was properly disposed of before disinfecting the table thoroughly. There were plenty of things to do so that she wouldn't have to watch the two of them. Not that she was avoiding looking. Not at all. She was fine with their relationship. Really. She just didn't need the front row seat.

Diggle came to stand by her. "Why don't you head home? I think we've lost them for the night."

She looked up and immediately wished she hadn't. Sara was now sitting on the edge of the table, Oliver standing between her legs with his arms looped gently around her shoulders. The former assassin's hands were running up and down his sides and they were whispering quietly together.

She nodded. Home was exactly where she wanted to go. Home was where the alcohol lived. "We should talk about Roy, though. I'm worried."

"We all are."

"Tonight was different, Digg. He's been out of control before but he's never just attacked any of us. He could have killed them."

"But he didn't." Oliver's voice was low, but firm as he interrupted. "As bad as it was, he stopped when he realized he'd hurt Sara."

"But he still hurt her," Diggle cautioned, "and you didn't exactly walk away scot free either."

"It's the Mirakuru, not him," Sara said, gently brushing off Digg's concern. "He's upset. We need to figure out a way for him to focus his emotions. He's got to channel that anger somewhere productive or else, I don't know," she sighed. "We might need to play cupid and get him back together with Thea."

Oliver shook his head. "Not going to happen. She thinks he was cheating."

Well, that was interesting in Felicity's opinion, seeing as Roy really only knew like four other people aside from Oliver's sister and she and Sara were two of them. "With who?" Felicity asked nervously.

"It's that girl he and Thea have been hanging around with. You actually know her," Oliver said, turning back to look at his girlfriend. "Your friend, Sin."

Sara cocked her head in surprise. "Sin? Really?"

Oliver nodded.

"That's weird." Sara smiled knowingly. "I'm pretty sure Sin's a lesbian."

That was also interesting to Felicity. "Oooh, so were you guys dating?"

Diggle and Oliver turned to her with almost identically shocked expressions on their faces. She didn't know what the big deal was. It seemed like an obvious question to ask since the girl had been the only person Sara trusted when she first came to town. Although, maybe Sin was a bit young.

Sara didn't seem bothered. "No, it's just kind of what I thought."

"Well, that's not definitive, really. I mean, we thought," she lifted a hand and indicated back and forth between her and Diggle, "you were a lesbian, too."

"Leave me out of this," Diggle said under his breath, taking a step away from her.

"What?" She asked him before turning quickly back to Sara. "I'm just saying. I was kind of surprised when you and Oliver got back together, but not because you'd only been back in town for five minutes. It was because, for like three of those five minutes, you sort of had a girlfriend. The whole complicated past thing didn't cross my mind until later." She looked at each of them. "Is that wrong for me to admit?"

Oliver folded his arms over his chest, his mouth opening and then closing as if he was trying to decide if Sara's honor needed defending or not. She could understand that it might be an awkward topic for him, but Diggle was looking at her like she'd been speaking in tongues. "What? Am I the only one that remembers the hot assassin ex girlfriend with a serious scorched earth policy and a Cirque du Soleil routine? Because, that was a thing that totally happened." Sara's eyes narrowed at her a little. "Not that I'm saying you're a lesbian now. Or that you aren't. I don't know how all that works, exactly. But I'm not judging. Sexuality is fluid, right? Oliver could probably get lots of lesbians to experiment a little. Or straight guys, even."

Everyone just stared at her for a moment but then Sara grinned. "Is that true Digg?"

Diggle inhaled sharply. "You ladies have no idea what we get up to," he deadpanned.

Oliver looked at both of them, seemingly shocked that they would have fun at his expense. "Let's move on."

"Okay," Sara said, gingerly rising from the table. "Leaving the spectrum of my sexuality aside for a moment, you should talk to your sister, Ollie. Tell her you saw Sin here tonight and she was playing for the other team or something."

Oliver shook his head. "I like Roy," he began, "but I'm not exactly upset that my sister is no longer dating a guy who's been dosed with Mirakuru. I vote we find another way to keep him in line."

Sara placed her hand on Oliver's arm. "His love for Thea is the only way we've kept him from spiraling, Ollie. You know that. Love keeps him grounded. We've seen that before."

Felicity considered Sara's words. "I wonder if we could just dose him with something that would mimic the emotion?"

"Like what?" Oliver asked.

"I don't know, oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin...those are all things that flush our system when we fall in love. It's not an ideal solution, but drugs like Prozac, or something a little less kosher like MDMA, might bring about that euphoric feeling and keep him in line."

Diggle grunted. "I'm saying it right now, just so there isn't any confusion later. The black man will not be the one out there scoring drugs for this little science experiment."

Sara nodded. "I could probably find some MDMA upstairs. I'm sure someone's got to be selling."

Oliver shook his head. "As the owner of that club, I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that. Felicity, check in with the lab at QC to see if they have anything we can work with before we make plans to score drugs off the street."

Felicity nodded and then walked over to her computer. "I'll see what's available to us, but I don't know how I'd justify requisitioning anything like that from the lab. And the stuff they sell on the street isn't exactly what we'd be looking for. You never know what it's cut with. I'm sure I can find something better once I start looking into it, though." She sat down, pulling the keyboard towards herself. "Of course getting him to take whatever we find is a whole other issue. We might have to break out the tranq darts again." She thought of Barry for a moment as she began typing. He'd been a very good sport about them knocking him out, but Roy would probably not be. Oliver came up behind her and watched quietly for a few minutes, which he knew drove her nuts. She turned and gave him a look. "Can I help you?"

"What are you doing?" He said, leaning down to look more closely at the screen.

She was going on the deep web, but Oliver wouldn't even understand what that meant. "Don't worry about it."

"Are you hacking into the QC lab's system?"

"No. And I wouldn't call it hacking if I did, seeing as I helped design it. That would just be checking in."

"So what's this?" He pointed at the screens that were basically just computer code. "Some sort of hacker Google?"

"You know that doesn't exist, right? Like hacker Google is not a thing. Everyone just uses Google."

His voice had an edge to it. "_Felicity_."

If it hadn't been so late she might have walked him through it all. But it was way past her bedtime and she just wanted to go home. She'd tell him another time. "Don't worry, Oliver. I've got this."

* * *

The thing about the deep web was that every interaction was risky. You could be talking to a fellow hacker, but you could also be talking to the FBI, a pervert, or a drug dealer. That part would be helpful in finding the MDMA if they needed it, but the drugs weren't the reason she was there.

It had only been about a week since Roy had attacked Oliver and Sara, but Felicity had been researching Mirakuru on the less family friendly side of the internet since the very first time Oliver had mentioned it. Not wanting to attract any attention, she'd been excessively careful. For months she'd been treading lightly, just sort of poking around casually to see if there was any information on it at all. She'd read though page after page of leaked documents from militaries and pharmaceutical companies around the world, looking for any sort of super soldier like programs or side effects. There wasn't much, but there were enough breadcrumbs to let her know the information was out there waiting if she ever decided to step out of the shadows.

The call from Officer Lance that afternoon had forced her to accept that the need for an answer finally outweighed the need to remain undetected. A man in a red hood had been involved in an incident at the pier the previous night and there'd been a fatality. The dead man was a bad guy, some sort of drug dealer who also dabbled in human trafficking, so Felicity wasn't exactly torn up about it when she erased the surveillance footage, but it still left her uneasy. Murder was murder, there was no way around it.

The way she saw it, Roy was not getting better. No one really wanted to talk about it, but it felt to her like he was slipping away. Not that any of them had seen him long enough to make that kind of call. Oliver was frustrated, his spoiled rich boy side rearing its ugly head as soon as he realized he couldn't just command Roy to appear. He and Sara had been fighting almost nonstop about what to do. Sara still thought Roy reconciling with Thea was their best hope, but Oliver wasn't willing to use his sister. Now that there was a body count, Felicity couldn't help but agree.

She kept her mouth shut, though because she didn't have a better solution to offer. She slowly began to wonder if her caution had forced the research to take too much time. If she'd been a little less paranoid, she might have found something to help Roy and maybe he wouldn't have killed someone. She couldn't help but feel partly responsible. Every night Diggle, Sara, and Oliver went out looking for him, but they always came back empty handed or battered. She needed to get them something they could use, something that would make a difference when they found him again.

There had been one source, a hacker she'd been curious about for quite some time now. He seemed to know a bit more than he was letting on about Mirakuru in the few exchanges they had. She'd been able to do a bit of a background check on his handle and he appeared to be a standard anti-government nut job, who had gotten lucky when a source started feeding him classified materials from Japan. They hadn't spoken in a while, but her gut was telling her that he had the answers she needed.

She reached out asking if he'd ever come across any information about successful treatments or even a cure for someone that had been given Mirakuru. 48 hours later there was a message waiting for her.

_"Living in purgatory is no fun. You have 30 minutes to claim the solution you seek. Come alone."_

It was a little heavy handed for her taste, but she'd always appreciated a hacker with flare. Diggle, Sara, and Oliver were all out chasing after Roy and it seemed silly to call them in just to meet with this dude. The address was in the Glades, she could be there and back in an hour or so. She wrote the address on a post it and stuck it on the corner of her computer monitor just in case, but she figured there was no need to gather the troops.

She left without telling anyone.

* * *

The meeting place was a warehouse much like the one Oliver had turned into Verdant. It was dark and damp, with poor lighting and lots of corners to hide in. She shivered inside her black and white polka dot dress, wishing she'd worn a coat. Or pants, actually. The more she mulled it over the more sense pants made. _Always wear pants to a clandestine meeting_, she thought with a smile. She would definitely add it to the sidekick rulebook she'd been compiling for Barry. Not that Barry would really need to know that rule. He probably wore pants to every meeting, clandestine or not. Still, it was best to be thorough.

A man stepped out of the shadows and as soon as her eyes settled on him she realized the magnitude of her mistake. He was big, bigger than the computer geek type she'd been expecting. In fact he was built just like Oliver and Diggle were, and walked as if each muscle was a weapon he knew exactly how to use. That wasn't what really scared her, though. No, it was the creepy, angular, gold looking mask and full body armor he was wearing that set off the alarm bells. It suddenly seemed incredibly stupid to not have told Oliver where she was going. She reached into her purse, trying to find her phone.

"Hello, Miss Smoak."

He had some sort of accent, but she couldn't quite place it. She raised her chin as her finger's wrapped around the plastic case of her cell. "How do you know my name?"

"I know everything about you. Everything about him."

She willed herself to remain calm. "Him who?"

"Our friend the Hood. Or is it the Arrow now? I've always just called him Oliver Queen. He's an old friend."

Felicity swallowed nervously. "Oliver Queen is my boss, but what does he have to do with any of this?" She turned on her heel, trying to remember exactly how far the exit was, and pulled the phone from her bag. She tried to unlock it, but she mistyped the passcode.

The man was behind her before she could make a second attempt, his hand wrapping around her own tightly. He moved in close, the mask cold against the shell of her ear. "Now, now. That's no way to treat someone who's trying to help you."

She spun around, pulling her arm from his grip. "Is that what you're doing? Because it feels more like you're threatening me."

His head cocked. "Beauty, bravery, and brains."

"So you are threatening me then?" She swallowed nervously. "Because I'm not someone that always needs to be right."

"I don't see it as a threat at all. I want to give you what you're looking for, but I need something first."

Her heart pounded erratically in her chest. "What?"

"Nothing you'll give."

He raised his fist and the world went black.

* * *

She woke to the sound of shattering glass in the distance. Her first thought was that Oliver had come to her rescue, but after a minute she wasn't quite sure. There were men shouting at each other and screaming in what she assumed was pain, but she didn't recognize any of the voices. Her head was pounding and there was blood in her mouth.

She tried to focus, but her glasses were gone and everything seemed soft around the edges. She heard Diggle's voice in her head demanding that she take note of her surroundings. Within the room she could make out some metal frames with lights rigged to them, a few IV stands, a refrigerator full of what had to be blood bags and a small grey metal box that had been left on a table nearby. There was a window to her right and a door just ahead of her that had been left open a crack. Every once in a while someone would run by with a shout, but no one made any attempt to enter. She was sitting at the end of a row of empty chairs, her wrists secured to the armrests by thick leather cuffs, while her legs were surprisingly unsecured. Her shoes were gone though, which she found a little weird. There were cameras hanging in two corners without any sort of indicator light on and she appeared to be alone.

She began tugging on the cuffs frantically, seeing if there was any slack, but they were tightly bound. She thought about the training she and Diggle had done after the Count had taken her, but most of it had been with zip ties and rope and in all of it he'd stressed how important it would be to her escape plan that she keep her body tense while she was being secured. Well, so much for that. She'd been unconscious the whole time and when she got back to the foundry they were going to have a very serious talk. She pulled and pulled, twisting her wrists, trying to slide her thumbs out, or fold her hands smaller, but all she was succeeding in doing was hurting herself.

The sounds of fighting outside grew more intense and she instinctively knew that if she were going to get out it would have to be now, while there was a distraction. She looked at the cuffs. The leather was brown and cracked, with light padding, but the most important thing was that the long strap that extended through the buckle securing her left wrist wasn't 100% flush with the metal clasp. A small flutter of excitement came to life inside her. She leaned over with her mouth, her sides and neck straining as she bit down on that rise, desperately hoping she'd be able to slowly work it loose. She focused, the feel of the leather between her teeth unpleasant and the taste making her gag, but she pulled it centimeter by centimeter, until about two inches were finally pulled through. She repositioned her mouth on the strap and managed to pull it all the way free of the buckle. She leaned back down and bit at the leather closest to the prong, pushing herself to extend her neck away from her body and breathing hard as she felt the cuff give. The prong had slipped from the hole and she yanked her hand up, freed finally on the one side. She reached over and undid the other arm quickly and then ran over to the window. She slid it open and looked out, the hope of an easy escape fading instantly as she realized she was about four stories up with nothing to climb onto.

She looked around the room for her purse, knowing she could call for help if her phone was still in it, but the only thing she found were her glasses. They were resting alongside the small metal box on the table. The arm had broken off on one side, and the frame seemed cracked in places, but the lenses were whole. She slipped them on and the world snapped into focus. She turned her attention to the box, a sense of anticipation creeping up her spine as she lifted the lid. The inside had been divided into two rows of three and in each little square was a small vial of bright green liquid. She smiled. It had to be the cure.

In the distance she heard shouting again followed by the clang of metal on metal. A voice cried out, _"Blood!"_ and she froze when she realized it belonged to the man she'd met earlier that night.

She needed to get out of there. She locked the lid back onto the box quickly and lifted it by its handle. It was heavier in her hand than she'd thought it would be and she thought about what it could be lined with as she made her way to the door. She slowly eased it open, taking a cautious step into the hallway and then pressing herself flush against the wall. She closed the door, hoping no one would realize she'd left until she was long gone. The sounds of fighting were coming from her right, so she made her way left. She had only gone about thirty feet when it sounded like something exploded beneath her. All the lights in the hallway went out and she ran, turning two corners before hitting a dead end. A door flew open to her right and a man came charging out. He froze when he saw her and she didn't think, she just hauled her arm back and smashed him in the face with the metal box. He went down instantly but she had no time to process it. There was a window at the very end of the hall. She said a quick prayer as she approached it and smiled when it was answered. On the other side of the glass was a fire escape.

She pushed the window up, cringing as it scraped loudly against its frame in the dark hallway. She opened it just enough to slip under and then eased it shut behind her. She took a moment to scope out the area from the metal balcony. There were no guards she could make out, just an open alleyway four stories below.

She didn't hesitate.

* * *

It was late and the walk back to the foundry was long and painful, her face throbbing from where she'd been hit and her feet in agony as they were cut up by the small rocks and bits of glass that littered the less than pristine sidewalks of the Glades. She stuck to side streets and darkened alleys when she could, afraid that someone would send a search party out looking for her. In just under an hour she pushed open the door to the basement and almost collapsed to her knees. She didn't know if she'd ever been so exhausted.

Sara was the first one to see her. "Oh my god, Felicity!" The woman called out as she ran up the stairs to her. She wrapped an arm around her shoulders and helped her down the final few steps. Oliver and Diggle came running after her.

"What happened? Was there an accident?" Diggle asked, scooping her up off her feet and carrying her over to a table. He sat her down carefully, Oliver standing silently to the side looking her over, with Sara just behind him.

"I'm fine," she whispered, gripping the box tightly in her fingers as Diggle began examining her face.

"Was it Roy?" Sara asked nervously.

Felicity shook her head, "No." That seemed like a strange assumption for Sara to have made, but she didn't know if something had happened while she was gone.

Oliver took hold of her left wrist and began examining the bruises that had formed where she'd struggled against the restraints. His thumb ran over her skin lightly, as his eyes trailed over her body. His voice was tense. "Where are your shoes, Felicity?"

She shook her head, "I don't know, he took them." Diggle's hands froze against her cheeks.

"Who took them?" Diggle asked.

"I'm not sure. A man in a mask, but not a skull one, a freaky goldish metal looking one with mismatched eyes. He had an accent."

Oliver pushed his way closer. "What's this?" He asked, looking at the box in her lap.

She lifted it towards him. There was a smattering of blood on the corner from where she'd hit the guy. "I stole it. For Roy." Oliver slowly took the box from her hand and carried it over to a nearby desk.

"Felicity, I know you're a little shaken up," Diggle started, "but you need to tell us what happened."

She nodded, but her eyes followed Oliver, watching closely as he lifted the lid. His entire body tensed when he took in its contents. He spun around to face her. "Where did you get this?"

"I was in this warehouse in the Glades. It's not far. I have the address." She went to grab for her purse before she remembered she'd never found it. Her hands lamely grabbed at the air for a second and then fell back to her lap.

Oliver stormed over to her. "How? How did you get it?" There was an underlying edge to his voice that made her nervous. Sara looked back and forth between them before making her way over to look in the box herself.

"You're angry." Felicity said to Oliver, her voice trembling softly.

"You're damn right I'm angry," Oliver said harshly, his hands clenching. "How did you get this?"

"Oh my god," Sara gasped, pulling one of the vials out and holding the green liquid up to the light. Diggle turned and stared at it.

"I've been doing some research," she said, swallowing nervously. "There was this guy, this hacker with information about Mirakuru. He told me that he had a cure."

Oliver's eyes went wide with incredulity, but his voice was softer. "And you believed him?"

Felicity reached for Oliver's wrist. "He mentioned purgatory. He knew about Lian Yu."

No one moved. The room went dead silent and she wished they could just take a break for a minute. Her face hurt, her wrists were sore, and she was pretty sure there were some deep cuts on her right foot. If they could just sit there in the quiet, Oliver would calm down enough for her to explain what had happened. It had all made sense a few hours ago.

He didn't seem to want to do that though. He practically ripped his arm away from her. "So, what? You went to meet him? Alone?" His voice rattled her brain, the anger in it only matched by the hurt.

She nodded. "He was just supposed to be a hacker. I didn't think he would-"

"No!" Oliver exploded. "No you didn't think at all. How could you meet someone without taking me with you? You find someone who knows about Mirakuru, who knows about Lian Yu and you think what? That it won't be of interest to us?"

Sara came over to Oliver's side and pulled him away, running her hands over his back and arms. "Calm down, Ollie. Just calm down."

"He said he had a cure." Felicity said, anger rising within her as Oliver refused to let her explain. "He said I had to go alone. And it didn't go perfectly, but I got out! I brought it back Oliver and I'm fine."

"You are not fine!" He shouted, stalking back towards her. He lifted her wrist up in front of her so she could see the evidence of how not fine she was. "Your face, Felicity," His other hand brushed her cheek and he shook his head angrily. "Nothing about this is fine. You could have been killed!" He dropped her hand abruptly and it fell limply to her lap. He took a shaky breath. "I didn't even know you were missing."

She was starting to get irritated by how willfully obtuse he was being. "They're just cuts and bruises. I'm not exactly thrilled that I got them, but that," she said, pointing over at the metal box, "makes it worth it. We can fix Roy."

"No." Oliver said, his voice low and menacing. "No, we can't."

"Why not?"

"Because it's not a cure," Sara interrupted softly. "It's Mirakuru."

Felicity felt her eyes welling, felt a sob rising in her throat but swallowed it down.

Diggle exhaled loudly. "I thought we destroyed it all."

Oliver shot him a look. "Clearly we were wrong."

"Oliver," Felicity began, "I'm sorry."

He nodded. "You should be, Felicity. This was a lead, the best lead we've had to find the people making this and now it's worth nothing. You have an address, but by the time we get there, these guys will be gone. Who knows if we'll be able to find them again?" He turned his back to her.

Sara ran a hand through her hair. "We should check the perimeter. Make sure she wasn't followed."

Felicity swallowed. "What?"

Diggle frowned. "They could have let you escape to see where you would go."

Felicity shook her head, trying to focus on what had happened that night. There was something important she was supposed to be telling them. "No, no, I don't think they meant to let me go. There was a fight. I woke up in this room strapped to a chair, but my restraints weren't done right and I got out. I could hear shouting, so I just grabbed the box and ran in the other direction." She thought for a moment and then her eyes rounded. "I think…I think Sebastian Blood was there. Oh God, Oliver, wait. They know who you are."

"You were strapped to a chair?" Oliver asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Sebastian Blood, you're sure?" Diggle asked.

She nodded. "Yeah, the accented masky guy was shouting his name. Well not Sebastian, just Blood. I mean that could be a coincidence, I guess. But he flat out told me he knew Oliver was the vigilante. He said he was an old friend."

Diggle shook his head. "I don't like any of this. He could have been talking about Blood and Oliver just to see what you'd say. People know that they're friends. We should definitely check the perimeter."

Sara nodded. "Why don't you and I do it? Oliver, you stay here and help clean her up." Oliver looked like he was going to protest, but Sara cut him off before he could speak. "If they were fishing for information about you, it won't do any good to show them your face. If anyone is watching, she just came to a place she knows someone at. Stay here and just be her boss. No need to confirm you're anything more." Oliver nodded.

When Diggle and Sara were gone an uneasy tension settled between Oliver and Felicity. He took out a first aid kit to tend to her wounds and then worked on her in total silence. The only noise came from her small murmurs of discomfort, which echoed a little in the room whenever he applied anything more than the gentlest of touches to her cheek. "Sorry," he finally murmured when she winced strongly under his hand. "I'm going to give you something for the pain.

"Okay."

His eyes softened a little as he took in her increasingly swollen face. He walked over to the cabinet and pulled out a syringe of morphine. "What did he hit you with?"

"I don't really remember," she shrugged. "His fist, I think." Oliver walked up to her, and wiped a patch of her upper arm with an alcohol wipe and then plunged the needle in. Felicity flinched a little.

"Well, it was quite a punch. Your eye socket is okay, but you still might have a fracture," he sighed, tossing the needle. "We should go to the hospital."

She shook her head. "No."

"Felicity."

"I'll just ice it, Oliver. If it gets worse tomorrow I'll go."

He dropped his hands from her face to the edge of the table, one just outside each of her knees. "Why are you fighting me on this. You're hurt. You need medical attention."

"And I'm getting it."

"_Felicity._"

"What? It's not like you ever go."

"Yeah but that's…"

"Different because it's you? Like you're some special snowflake that the laws of modern medicine don't apply to? Please."

His head dropped and he shook it slowly. "Sometimes, I really don't understand you. You're the smartest person I know, but you're acting like an idiot."

"You're one to talk."

"Don't push me right now," he said tersely, shoving lightly off from the table and then walking towards the back. He returned a few minutes later with a tub of warm soapy water and a washcloth. Without saying a word he knelt down in front of her, his hands lightly running over her feet so he could examine them. He dipped the cloth in the water and then ran it over her calves and feet, cleaning the dirt and grime away. It felt sort of amazing actually, and she hummed softly in appreciation.

"Your feet are a mess." He said, cradling the right one in his hand as he wiped the top of it off.

She wasn't surprised, that foot was possibly throbbing more than her face at the moment. "It was a long walk home."

His hands stilled on her heel, his head falling forward so that his forehead brushed against her shin. He blew out an unsteady breath and she shivered. "I'm really mad at you right now," he said softly.

"I know."

He pulled his head back, reaching for the tweezers and packets of antiseptic wipes. "It looks like there's some glass or gravel in there," he said, tearing open a wipe and running it over the sole of her foot. She hissed loudly at the burn of it and then licked her lips. "Just try and remember," she said, her voice a little strained, "that I'm always nice to you when I patch you up after you do something stupid."

He wiped the same spot again but this time he blew softly against the wound to ease the sting. Her mouth went dry.

He lifted her foot a little and used the tweezers to pull a shard of something from her skin. "I don't understand why you would keep this from me."

She took a deep breath, feeling the edges of the pain beginning to blur from the shot. It was like she was suddenly tipsy. "So, I guess you're the only person allowed to keep secrets, now? I'm sorry Oliver, but you're being a bit of a hypocrite. I don't tell you one thing for like one hour and you're going to lecture me about keeping you in the dark?"

"Felicity," he warned.

She blew out a sharp breath as he began stitching the cut in her foot up. "Don't '_Felicity_' me. You keep things from me all the time and never apologize. You've told Digg way more about the island than you've told me."

He examined her foot closely, pressing his fingers into her skin as he tried to force it back together. "So what, this is tit for tat?"

"No. I'm not a child. I wasn't plotting out some grand scheme. I was just trying to do my part."

He pulled some gauze from the kit and slowly wrapped it around her foot. "You do your part. You always do your part."

"I haven't exactly been the most useful member of the team, lately."

Oliver taped down the gauze and switched to her other foot. "That's not how we see it."

She felt her eyes filling with tears, or maybe they were just no longer focusing fully. She yawned. "How can you not? You guys go out there every night, and I just sit here listening in on the comms."

He shook his head and tore open a new wipe. "This is going to sting," he said as he swept it over the bottom of the big toe on her left foot. She flinched and then watched slightly fascinated as he once again blew lightly on the skin to ease the pain. She closed her eyes and had a flash of him in another setting, sitting just as he was, drawing her toe into his mouth, his tongue running over the skin, his teeth scraping down on the digit. She'd never shown any signs of having a foot fetish before, but a pulse of desire licked into her belly. She gasped, her fingers curling over the edge of the table.

He looked up at her quickly, "You ok?"

She nodded, opening her eyes and willing herself to focus. "I may be practically useless in the field," she said lowly, her voice a little breathy, "but there are things I can do that I haven't even shown you yet. Things that would blow your mind, Oliver." His fingers sort of skidded over her skin and the tweezers dropped to the concrete floor with a small clatter. He stared up at her in shock, his cheeks flushed and his mouth hanging open.

She shook her head. "Things I can do with a computer," she muttered, a little embarrassed. "Mind blowing computer things."

His jaw clenched as he let her foot slip from his hands. He looked away, snatching the tweezers back up and then toying with them for a moment. She had the distinct impression he was trying to steady his own breath.

She tried again, but her brain was beginning to feel fuzzy. "I've been gathering information on Mirakuru from all over, Oliver. But it hasn't been enough, I've been too careful. That's my whole problem in general, right? Always so careful. Well, I took a risk today because I thought it was worth it. Not that I really thought it was a risk at the time. I was expecting some freaky loner guy who spent too much time reading conspiracy websites and combing through WikiLeaks. I definitely would have told you if I'd suspected he was some sort of hacker ninja. Next time I won't be as naïve, trust me."

Oliver gently picked up her foot again. "I do trust you. I probably only trust you. And Digg. I put my life in your hands whenever I walk out that door. You tell me to go somewhere or do something and I do it, I don't even think about it. So I count on you, of all people, to always be honest with me." He put some ointment over a gash on the ball of her foot and then covered it with a bandage.

She watched him as he worked. "I wasn't hiding this from you on purpose, Oliver. I was just getting more information. That's what I do, you know? It's kind of the whole reason I'm here to begin with. I thought I'd be coming back with good news for you. Maybe I thought I could be a little bit of a hero for once. Even without having all the muscles."

He released her left foot. "The thing about heroes is that they get hurt, Felicity." He stood up, and lifted his hand to cradle the undamaged side of her face, his thumb lightly stroking her cheek. "I can't stand the idea of something happening to you," he whispered and then his eyes widened with surprise as if he hadn't meant to say anything like that to her.

"Nothing happened."

His hand fell away and his body seemed to go rigid. "All this is nothing?" He asked angrily. "These cuts on your feet, the damage to your face, those bruises on your wrists? You were tied to a chair in a room with Mirakuru, just like Roy was when I found him. You could have been injected."

Her breath hitched as she realized how much worse her day could have been. "But I wasn't."

"Because you got lucky. I should have been there to protect you."

"I protected myself."

His hands clenched at his sides. "No, you didn't. Protecting yourself would have been making sure you weren't in that position to begin with." He ran a hand over her shoulder. "You have to promise me you won't take a risk like this again."

She folded her hands into her lap, taking in the purple marks that were growing darker on her pale skin. He was wrong. What she'd done had been worth it. She hadn't come back with a cure, but now they had something they could analyze. It might be possible to make a cure. She looked up at him. "I won't do that. Today didn't exactly work out, I know, and I'll make sure you're always in the loop about stuff like this, but if I have a chance to save Roy, or any of you, I'm going to take it."

He took a few steps back from her, his arms extending out at his sides a little. "Then I don't know if I can have you here."

She hopped off the table too fast, her feet screaming at her as they hit the floor. The room seemed to bend and she grabbed the table for balance. "Don't say that."

"It's the truth."

She dragged her hand over her head angrily, feeling the bumps in her hair and realizing how messy her ponytail must have been. "You don't get to make that decision."

"I think that I do."

"Well I think that you don't," she snapped. "Digg will have a vote and I think he'll side with me. You make decisions everyday. Sometimes they work out and sometimes they don't and we support you every time. We stand by you. You need to do the same for us."

"I can't do that if you're just going to run around trying to get yourself killed."

She was done with this nonsense. She threw her hands up in the air, but was a little surprised when they fell back down against her sides in a somewhat uncontrolled and heavy slap. "No one's trying to do that! I am 100% not trying to do that. I like being alive, being alive is good, death is bad and not on my agenda, but you can't prevent me from doing what I think is right. You're not my father or my boyfriend and I'm not some star struck girl that's head over heels in love with you and willing to take whatever crumbs you'll throw my way. You don't get the deciding vote on what I do with my life."

He shot her a look indicating he totally thought he had that kind of power and she was too exhausted to react to it maturely. Her face and her feet were hurting her so badly and the medicine was taking the edge off, but it hadn't come close to numbing everything yet. She wanted to crawl into bed and not come out for days, so if he wanted her gone she was happy to go. "Fine, if you say I can't be here, I'll find someone else that wants my help."

He smiled wryly. "Like who?"

"There's always that bat guy in Gotham. I bet he could use a friend."

Oliver's jaw clenched. "You don't even know who he is."

"Well, with what I know about vigilantes, he's most likely a billionaire and a jackass. The list of possibilities can't be too long." They stared at each other, neither willing to back down.

"Fine," he said coldly. "If that's what you want to do then I can't stop you."

She shook her head angrily, which caused the room to sway a bit. She planted her hand on the table's edge as she waited for everything to stop moving. "It's not what I want to do, Oliver, and you know it." Her tongue felt thick in her mouth and it was getting harder to form the words she needed, her brain seemed slower and faster all at the same time. "I want to be part of this team, but you don't get to use me whenever it's convenient for you and set me aside when it gets to be too much. If you want to play that game, talk to your girlfriend. Although, I don't think that'll fly with her either, at least not anymore."

Oliver's eyes flashed with anger. "That's a low blow."

Her hand flew to her mouth. She hadn't meant to say that.

"Sara and I are both aware of our past. We don't need you throwing it in our faces."

"I wasn't trying to. Honestly, Oliver I didn't mean that. It just came out wrong. I'm sorry. I'm so tired and everything really hurts."

He nodded, but the anger was evident in the set of his shoulders. "I'll get Digg to drive you home."

"Oliver, please. I'm so sorry."

He ignored her, grabbing a set of keys off his desk as he pulled out his phone to text Digg to meet them at the car. "Let's go," he said, as he headed up the stairs. She followed him slowly, her body seeming to have trouble processing that she was trying to climb. When she finally got to the door he gave her a long look before punching in the alarm code. As soon as it beeped its acceptance he leaned down and swept her up off her feet.

The world tilted. "Whoa. What are you doing?"

"I just bandaged your feet."

"I can walk to the car. This is weird. You're mad at me," she said sleepily, settling her arm around the back of his neck.

He pushed the door open and walked them out into the mostly deserted parking lot. Diggle and Sara were nowhere to be seen. "Yeah, well mad or not, you don't have any shoes on."

"You lived on an island for five years without shoes. I think I can survive a fifty foot walk."

He looked straight ahead. "I had shoes."

She frowned. "No, you told me you didn't."

"I wasn't being serious."

She was silent for a moment and then gasped loudly. "What about a shirt?"

The corners of his lips tugged up. "I had a shirt too. A few of them."

"So on a deserted island you manage to stay dressed, but back here you just can't keep your clothes on. That makes no sense." She rested her head on his shoulder. Angry at her or not, he was nice and warm up against her in the cool night air. She could feel the muscle of his forearm under her thighs and knew it would be something she'd probably think about later. He felt so solid and safe that for a moment she couldn't remember why she hadn't just promised him what he wanted. The idea of Oliver always being around to protect her was not exactly unappealing and this would have been a much nicer experience if they were on better terms. She yawned and realized he hadn't laughed at her joke. "Are you still mad at me?"

He tilted his head, his voice sharper than she really thought it needed to be. "A little."

"Is that why," she asked, her words slurring a bit, as they reached the car, "you're trying to ruin my fantasy of you on the island?" He sat her down carefully on the side of the hood, leaving her legs to dangle over the tire.

"What did you imagine?" He asked as he clicked the remote to unlock the locks.

"I don't know," she smiled goofily. "You in a loin cloth," she started, her hand rising into the air and making an exaggerated swoop, "swinging around on some vines."

His eyebrows inched up his forehead. "A loin cloth?"

"Hey, what can you do? At least I let you wear something."

He laughed softly and then leaned against the hood next to her. He let his head fall back as he looked up at the sky for a minute. It was cloudy and grey, with no stars peeking through. She watched the clouds moving across it for a moment and thought of the sea in her dream. She shuddered.

"Felicity," he began, "I know I can be overprotective, but I'm not trying to control you. I just want to keep you safe." He crossed his arms over his chest and took a deep breath, letting his head drop back down. "You're worth more than the rest of us," he said quietly. "Do you understand?"

Her heart fluttered to life in her chest, beating so rapidly she thought it might strain. That was a crazy thing for him to say and completely untrue. She shook her head no.

He pushed off of the car and stood in front of her. "You're one of the few bright spots in my life. I need you to be the one that comes out of all of this okay when it's done. The idea of something bad happening to you...it makes me wish I'd never been given your name."

"Don't say that," she whispered.

His eyes locked onto hers and he licked his lips. "You'd be safer."

"S'ridiculous. There's no way you can know. What if all the crazy things that happened still happened but I didn't know you? I'd have had my head blown off by a necklace bomb." She giggled. "So embarrassing."

He shook his head. "That's not even not funny."

She started to slide off the hood of the car.

"Your feet-" he said, reaching out and catching her at the waist, not letting her down off the hood.

She looked up him. "I don't care about my feet."

He smiled, pushing her back. "I care about your feet."

She rolled her eyes as she settled again on the car. "Fine. I was going to hug you so just imagine it happened, okay?"

He nodded. "Okay."

"And listen Oliver. We're both gonna come out of this okay. And so will Diggle. And Sara. And, well, everyone. In the whole world. Except the bad guys, obviously. They're going down." She reached out and playfully punched at his shoulder. "You still mad at me?"

"No," he smiled ruefully, stepping towards her. "I'm not still mad at you." His hand reached out and cradled her unbruised cheek while his other hand skimmed over her ponytail. "I never seem to stay mad at you."

Deep inside she was starting to feel warm, as if she'd settled into a hot bath. Everything had a very pleasant haze around it and she felt nice and soft and squishy. He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the bruised cheek.

"Did you make it better?" She asked as he pulled back, her eyes wide and unfocussed.

He nodded. "Yeah. I think so."

She smiled the smile of someone high as a kite. "Thanks."

They sat there, in the cool night air, waiting for Diggle. "I'm tired. How far out is this perimeter thing anyway?" she asked.

"What?"

"They said they were going to check the perimeter, but it's like how long does it take to walk around the building? A crazy long time, apparently."

"Well, it's a couple of blocks. It's beyond our cameras. They'll be back soon."

She was about to nod when a woman's scream pierced through the air. Oliver went from relaxed to fully alert instantly, his eyes darting around, his shoulders back as he waited for there to be more information. There were a few seconds of silence and then Oliver's name curled through the air on Sara's voice. He turned and ran towards the cry, leaping over car hoods and boxes and anything else that stood in the way of getting to her.

Felicity slid from the car, every bone in her body protesting, her feet slapping against the pavement painfully as she chased unsteadily after him.

She finally rounded the corner heading towards the main entrance of Verdant and found herself running straight into Oliver's back. He threw his arm out, trying to keep her from going any further. She grabbed it to balance herself and then attempted to step to the side. He turned around quickly and gathered her against him. "Don't look," he pleaded, holding her head to his chest.

Her head was swimming. _Digg,_ she thought, and her heart sank. She was going to be sick.

She pushed her arms against Oliver's chest, trying to get away, but he didn't move at all. "Felicity, you don't want to see." She pushed again and his arms went slack. She stepped away from him until she saw Sara kneeling on the ground looking helplessly at a lifeless body.

It wasn't Digg. That was the only thought she had and she smiled until her brain caught up with her eyes. The body belonged to a boy. A boy in jeans and a red hoodie. Her stomach dropped.

Roy.

His handsome face had been marred by the arrow that had been shot through his eye. She watched his blood seeping into the pavement for a moment, the air around his body seeming to shimmer as his life ran out of him. It didn't seem real. She had the distinct feeling that she was looking at the scene through a tube or a tunnel. He was right there, but everything seemed so far away.

"There was a note," Sara began.

Oliver's voice was sharp and commanding. "Tell me."

Sara unfolded a piece of paper, and Felicity watched as her fingers printed it with blood. Sara's voice trembled a little as she read. "This time I made the choice for you, kid."

Oliver and Sara stared at each other as Diggle ran up. Felicity turned and almost fell against him, her arms wrapping around his middle as she pressed her face into his chest. Tears began to fall from her eyes, a combination of her sadness and also the shame of her relief that the body had been Roy and not Digg. Her friend had gone still when she locked onto him, but as he processed the scene, his hand began running up and down her back comfortingly.

"What happened?" Diggle asked roughly.

Oliver shook his head. "It can't be."

"It can't be what?" Felicity asked.

Sara's voice was raw and her eyes never left Oliver's. "Slade."


	4. Chapter 4

I think it's safe to say I've abandoned the 5 times premise, partly because I know this is going to be more than 5 chapters. There is mention of the Clock King in this bit and I'm basically going to say that everything that happened in "Time of Death" happened in this universe too, except Roy was too busy being dead to attend the party. Thea probably didn't go either, since she'd be rather depressed. But Oliver was a big enough idiot to go ahead with that shindig, probably because he thought it would cheer people up or something. I love him, really, but man. He's not the brightest bulb. Also, I know very little about chemistry or Faraday cages, so let's make believe it all makes sense. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

Roy's funeral was held on a Tuesday at a small church in a not quite gentrified part of the Glades. Thea Queen sat illuminated by the morning light between her mother and brother in the front row with damp delicate eyes and a fragile smile. She acknowledged the people offering their condolences numbly, but gracefully. Losing people she loved appeared to be something she'd mastered.

Felicity wasn't entirely sure how it was possible for a funeral to be more awkward than sad, but this one was. On one side of the church there were the people from the Glades, mostly a bunch of kids all decked out in their best Hot Topic, who got up and shared funny stories about Roy's relatively harmless life of crime before he met Thea. On the other side there was the Queen faction, who wore dark expensive suits, said nothing, and looked intestinally distressed whenever someone mentioned how good Roy had been at outrunning cops.

When it was over, Oliver and his family were standing by the doors with Roy's mother, shaking hands with people as they made their way out. She, Digg, and Sara were just stepping into the vestibule to pay their respects when a hand reached out and snaked around Felicity's arm.

"It's nice to see you again, Ms. Smoak."

The world seemed to grind to a halt as the voice filled her ears. She looked down at the hand holding her just above the wrist and then her eyes slowly followed the line of an arm higher and higher until she finally reached a face. It wasn't familiar, but she'd have known the voice anywhere. It was the man she'd met in the warehouse, Oliver's former friend, and Roy's murderer. Slade. Her heart stuttered and her breathing got very shallow as everything sped up again. She opened her mouth, trying to sound some sort of warning, but all she did was squeak. It was enough. Sara turned around and when her eyes landed on the man she gasped, "Slade!"

In an instant Diggle was between them, his hand on his holstered gun. "Let go of her now," he ordered. As soon as Slade relaxed his hand, Sara grabbed Felicity's other wrist, yanking her back and behind her for protection.

"If I had come here to kill you," Slade said to Digg, sounding somewhat bored, "you wouldn't even get off a shot."

"I'm happy to test that theory."

"What are you doing, Mr. Diggle?" Moira Queen's voice was sharp as she stepped alongside them. Felicity turned and looked towards her, but all she saw was Oliver standing just beyond his mother's shoulder. He was completely still, his eyes wide and mouth slightly open as he processed the specter in front of him. Moira turned back to her son. "This is Slade Wilson, one of my campaign contributors. Oliver, tell your man to back down."

Oliver nodded stiffly and Diggle stepped back. "This is ridiculous," Moira continued. "Explain to me what you thought you were doing."

Digg sniffed, his nostrils flaring. "My apologies, Mrs. Queen. I thought he was one of the paparazzi sneaking in." It was a good lie, so good that Felicity was kind of surprised he'd come up with it. He'd been dealing with the press for days though, so maybe it hadn't seemed such a stretch.

On the night Roy had been killed, a paparazzo that had been outside Verdant hoping for a random snap of Oliver or Thea had instead gotten the photo of a lifetime; a picture of two vigilantes standing somewhat dramatically over a body. Unfortunately, she and Oliver had been in the picture too, standing a little off to the side, arms wrapped around each other in a comforting hug, Oliver's lips pressed against the top of her head. The shot had been on the cover of every paper in the city the following morning and then gone national later in the day. No one had cropped them out.

Someday, she thought, she might be able to see a bright side to that photo. It would certainly be useful for Oliver's defense if he were ever arrested for being the vigilante, but for now, it was just something that made their lives harder.

The headline on TMZ hadn't been about Roy at all. Or even the vigilantes. It had been about Oliver and somehow, by default, her, _'Oliver Queen and New Lady Love Witness Violent Verdant Murder.'_ The media had gone into a frenzy. Everywhere she went there were dozens of photographers following her. Everyone was curious about her, wanting to know about her life, and the bruises on her face and, of course, how she had landed one of the country's most eligible bachelors. It had been her picture in the little square on the top right corner of the cover of People that week and it was her phone that a producer from Anderson Cooper kept calling in search of an interview. It was a nightmare. Although, she shouldn't complain, Thea was having a much worse time of it.

Moira turned to Slade. "I'm so sorry. Please forgive Mr. Diggle for his exuberance. It's been a very trying week. I'm sure you understand."

Slade nodded and smiled. "Of course, Moira. And there's been no harm done. In fact," he said, shooting Diggle a significant look, "he didn't bother me in the slightest."

Moira turned to Oliver, "Where are my manners? Slade, this is my son, Oliver. Oliver this is Slade Wilson. He's been a very generous contributor."

Oliver took a hesitant step forward, his hand trembling as he extended it. Their palms slapped together and Felicity watched as Slade crushed Oliver's fingers for a long moment. "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Queen."

Oliver nodded, his face showing a twinge of pain. "Mr. Wilson."

Moira shook her head, "Call him Oliver, please. And this is my daughter, Thea."

Thea stepped forward, her eyes totally glazed over as her hand reached out mechanically for him to shake. Slade offered his condolences and she nodded. Felicity doubted she was aware of anything that was actually going on around her.

"This is Oliver's friend, Sara Lance," Moira said, pausing so the two could shake hands. Sara nodded coldly at the man instead and Moira pressed on, "you've already met John, and this is…Oliver's secretary."

Slade smiled. "She and I have met before. In fact I was distressed that I didn't get to spend as much time with her as I'd have liked. I'm hoping to rectify that soon."

Between his words and Moira's icy stare, Felicity had a moment of panic that she was about to do her best Victorian woman impersonation and come down with the vapors, but she stuck her chin up and met his eyes. "Strange, I was thinking we'd spent more than enough time together."

Moira's eyebrow lifted haughtily. "Really Ms. Smoak, that's no way for you to speak to a friend of our family."

"He's not a friend, mother." Oliver said, his voice low and bristling with anger. "At least not one of mine."

"Oliver!"

Oliver kept his eyes on Slade. "Diggle, would you please escort my sister out?" Digg nodded and ushered Thea away.

Oliver took a step closer to Slade and lowered his voice. "When you're done playing games, you know where to find me." Felicity's eyes flared with nervousness. What was he doing, poking the bear like that? Oliver quickly reached out for Felicity's hand and turned, pulling her along with him. She didn't resist, but she was getting a little sick of being yanked around like a rag doll.

"Oliver!" Moria scolded. "I'm so sorry, Slade, I don't know what's come over him."

"Sorry mom," Oliver called over his shoulder. "But I don't like your friend." He banged open the door of the church and walked out, Felicity stumbling a little behind him.

Flashbulbs popped.

* * *

The Mirakuru was annoying.

It sat in the foundry on Felicity's desk mocking her. Well maybe not mocking, exactly, but definitely radiating silent judgment. She had no idea what to do with it. Sending it out to the QC lab, or any lab really, seemed like a bad idea. Not only because it could lead to awkward questions for them, but also because it was dangerous. She doubted they could guarantee the safety of anyone working on it and she didn't want an innocent person getting caught in the crossfire. She stretched in her chair and groaned. She was still in the dress she had worn to the funeral and the boning on the sides was starting to poke at her.

Oliver and Sara walked in from their patrol quietly. "What's wrong?" he asked when Felicity didn't turn to greet them.

Her chair slowly drifted around and she stood. "We have to decide what to do with the Mirakuru," she said firmly, walking over to his desk as he began removing his bow and quiver. "Is there anyone at the QC lab that you've looked into? Someone we could trust to work on this for us?"

Oliver paused, his hand hovering over his bow. "I thought you would do it."

"Sure, because it's so easy to just reverse-engineer a cure from something," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'll get right on it."

Oliver's head tilted in confusion. "Well, why can't you?"

She threw her hands up. "Oh, I don't know, Oliver. Maybe because I'm not a wizard?"

"Is it a matter of equipment? You can buy whatever you need."

He could really be so thick sometimes. "It's not about equipment, although maybe it is. I wouldn't know. Which is kind of the problem. I don't know what I'm doing." She paused as those words hung in the air. "Wow. It's incredibly rare for me to say that and actually mean it." She shook her head, focusing back on Oliver. "Look, I'm not that kind of scientist. We could buy a centrifuge or a thousand Bunsen burners, but unless you also know where I can get a magic wand, it's not going to do us any good."

He placed his hands on her shoulders and squeezed gently. "You'll figure it out."

It was only the sincerity of his statement that kept her from punching him in the nose. She took a deep breath as she headed back to her desk. She was cranky and sad and she didn't want to lash out at him just because it had been such an emotional day. It wasn't his fault that he expected too much, usually she didn't mind.

"What?" He asked, taking a tentative step in her direction.

"Nothing," she sighed, flipping the lid back on the box. "I just wish Barry were awake. It would make things a lot easier."

Oliver didn't respond. He just made his way over to the case he stored his bow in and aggressively jammed it back into place. The noise startled her and she looked up, watching as he stormed towards the back. "What's eating him?" She asked Sara.

Sara made her way to Felicity's side as she shrugged. "Oh, everything," she said with a soft smile. "There's a lot going on. He's worried about Thea, and about how we'll handle Slade. We met some of his goons tonight and it didn't go well. Ollie's not used to retreating." She took a deep breath and rolled her head around on her shoulders. Felicity listened as the muscles cracked and popped. "Without Roy's strength we're at a severe disadvantage."

Felicity hung her head. "That's why we need someone who knows what they're doing to look at this. It's too important for me to just be messing around with."

"What's our other option?"

"We can send it out to a lab, I guess. I'd have to figure out a story for it and maybe fake that it's some sort of top secret, like, classified material to keep it under wraps. It's a risk, but it's the only thing I can think to do. That being said, I'm still not sure we're going to be able to get it in time to stop Slade."

Sara nodded, looking down at Felicity's desk and noticing the browser window on her computer. It was open to an article on Roy's funeral and a photo of Oliver bundling Felicity into a car was alongside the text. "These articles are really starting to piss me off," Sara sighed.

"I know. It's really annoying."

"No, it's infuriating. I mean talk about speculation."

"If I could make it stop, I would. Oliver says not to worry about it. He thinks releasing a statement will only add fuel to the fire."

Sara arms crossed over her chest. "Well, he doesn't care because he's not the one being insulted all over the media."

Felicity wouldn't say it was insulting to be linked to Oliver, exactly, but she could see how Sara might be unhappy with the coverage. It must have led to some uncomfortable conversations with her family, too, now that Felicity thought about it.

"I mean listen to this," Sara said, bending over and placing a finger on a section of text as she began to read aloud from the article. _'Neither Oliver Queen nor his new girlfriend, Felicity Smoak, have commented on the night they were aided by the Arrow and his mysterious assistant.'_ Sara took an irritated breath and stood back up, her hand dropping away from the screen. "Assistant my ass! And this isn't the only article that's called me that. I'm this close to beating the crap out of these reporters."

Felicity almost laughed. "Ugh. Assistant. Yeah, that's upsetting."

"You'd think a journalist would take the time to fact check before slapping a label on someone. Obviously, if either of us were going to be the other's assistant, he'd be mine. I have years of training. And he, what? Spent a few months with the Russian mafia learning to fight like a street thug? It's an effective method, but there's no comparison. I could kill him in ways he can't even imagine." She took a deep breath and stared at the screen for a moment. "I just hope no one in the League reads this," she muttered.

Felicity placed a hand on Sara's shoulder in solidarity. The girl was terrifying, but that didn't mean her ego couldn't be pricked. "Welcome to my life."

"Yeah, sorry," she grinned. "I guess you've been dealing with this a lot longer than I have."

Felicity nodded. "Just be glad you don't actually have to do any of the paperwork that comes with the title." She looked down at the Mirakuru. "Or the side projects."

Sara reached out, her fingers slowly tracing the open edge of the metal box. "You know, I could always take a look at this, if you want."

Felicity thought for a moment. It would have been a great idea if her friend had a PhD in chemistry, but she didn't have so much as a Bachelor's in English. She wasn't overly optimistic Sara could do anything of value with it.

"Well, not to knock higher education, but degrees aren't everything. I worked with Ivo on this stuff for a while and when I was in the League I did some lab work. Mostly mixing poisons, but I did make an antidote every now and again. Real world experience should count for something, right?"

Felicity looked up at her friend in confusion and then realized her thoughts hadn't been as silent as she'd intended. "Yes! Of course. Sorry. I didn't mean to insult you. I mean, I have a degree, a ridiculously expensive one that I won't pay off until I'm 9,000 years old, and it's pretty much worthless right now. I'm definitely team real world experience. Here," she said, finally plucking a vial out. "Do your worst."

As Sara reached for it, something inside Felicity told her not to hand the serum over. She held it for a beat longer than she should have and Sara ended up having to tug it away. "Thanks," she said, shooting Felicity an odd look.

Felicity nodded slowly. "Of course." Her stomach fluttered nervously, but she dismissed it.

* * *

A man named William Tockman came into their lives, distracting them from Slade Wilson and the Mirakuru as he blew up the carefully constructed illusion of safety Felicity had built around them in the foundry.

When the attack was over she realized that neither Oliver nor Diggle had thought she could be touched there. When she talked about viruses and safety precautions for their systems it was all just white noise to them, all just theoretical, the way it was for her when Oliver said Slade was stronger than he was. She heard the words but never really believed them. She doubted that Oliver or Diggle had ever even contemplated the idea that there might be someone out there who could outsmart her. In Felicity they trusted and she had let them down. She'd let a virus into their sanctuary. She'd let someone catch her unaware. As she sat amongst the wreckage of her servers, she promised herself it would never happen again.

In the days after the Clock King had been captured and she was busy rebuilding her network, she still made time to offer Sara help with the Mirakuru, but she was always politely rebuffed. Sara seemed to want to keep what she was doing to herself and treated Felicity's attempts at helping her as if she were being second-guessed. Felicity didn't blame her. When she was working on coding she didn't want anyone else poking around and offering an opinion. Sometimes letting people see what you were doing broke the spell and made you start doubting what you'd come up with. It was definitely better to follow something through to the end before you shared it. She got it. She did. Really.

It was just that the Mirakuru scared her. And so did the way Sara's eyes lit up whenever she was working on it.

They all pretended not to notice.

* * *

When Oliver bounded down into the basement at the end of the week, Sara was looking at the serum under the scope, while Felicity was unpacking large panels of thick metal mesh along the back wall. He kissed Sara on the cheek and then made his way over to Felicity. "What are you doing?"

She didn't bother looking up at him. "Don't worry about it. Where's Digg?"

"He's finishing up the patrol for me." He stepped closer to her and she could practically hear the little temper tantrum he was throwing in his head. "Felicity, what is this?"

"Well, eventually it'll be a Faraday cage."

"A what?"

"A big metal box. Blocks out EMP's and prevents van Eck phreaking. I'm going to set my station up in it so I can protect my computers and the servers better." Oliver stared at her blankly and she rolled her eyes. "I said not to worry about it." He looked annoyed, but it was his own fault for asking in the first place. "It just means the stuff with William Tockman won't happen again. Here," she said, rising to her feet and picking up an end, "help me pop this into place."

Oliver stared at her for a moment. "Fine." He was still irritated, but he came over and picked up one end.

"It's really a security upgrade," she began as they slid the panel next to the ones she'd already screwed into place. "We used to build smaller versions of these all the time when I was at MIT. Nutty, prepper survivalist guys are crazy into them. The metal blocks radio waves and electricity can't get through or fry anything inside, so people won't be able to eavesdrop on my computer screens. I should have built one a long time ago."

He nodded, although she doubted he really understood what she was talking about. "And you're building it over here?"

She bent down and started screwing the panel into the base. "Yeah, it'll be easier to be out of the way. And now you guys will have more room to train."

Oliver frowned for a moment and she caught him sneaking a glance back towards where her desk was currently located. "Don't worry," she teased. "I'll still be able to see the salmon ladder."

His eyes darted back and he looked a little guilty. She thought he would brush her off or ignore her but he caught her eye instead. "Well, I know how much you enjoy it." His voice was a little husky and she blushed as the screw tightened fully. He went and picked up another panel, not even bothering with the pretense that he needed her help.

"How's Thea doing?" She asked, starting to screw the new section into the base as soon as he placed it there.

Oliver kept the panel steady. "As well as can be expected. She's working with my mother's campaign staff to organize some sort of benefit for Roy in a few weeks. She wants to do it at Verdant."

"Really? Did you tell her kids from the Glades might not take too kindly to being forced into a photo op for the one percent?" She asked, handing him the screwdriver so he could screw the top into place.

He focused on that task like his life depended on it. "No," he said after a long pause. "I didn't mention that."

It was obvious to Felicity that the thought hadn't even crossed his mind. It probably hadn't crossed Thea's either. She shook her head. "Well," she sighed, "if there's one thing you excel at aside from the whole," she lifted her hands in front of her chest and mimed drawing back a bowstring, "bow and arrow thing, it's throwing awkward social gatherings. Maybe she just wants to follow in your footsteps."

Oliver shot her a look. "I don't object to the benefit. It's the timing that's bad."

She nodded. "Very."

"And just so you know, I used to throw great parties. They weren't awkward at all."

Felicity smiled. "So the tabloids once said."

"Seriously," he started, reaching up and tightening a screw along the first panel he'd helped her with. "Me and Tommy, we'd clear out a whole wing of his dad's house and just open the doors. Tons of people used to come. Friday night until Monday morning, it never stopped."

"Hmm, sounds to me like Tommy was the one throwing those parties," she teased.

He laughed. "Maybe." He handed her the screwdriver and went to get another panel.

"So, these epic and not at all awkward extravaganzas, it was you and Tommy and who else? Laurel?"

"Yeah. Laurel was there," he said, positioning the metal on the frame. "She was different back then. Always running around doing something crazy. She was the only one who could outdrink Tommy." He glanced down at her. "I guess that's not so funny now."

She frowned as she tightened another screw. "Yeah."

He took a step back and turned around. There was less than a third of the cage left to build. "This is big."

She nodded. "I have a lot of stuff." She looked up at him as he walked closer to the back walls. "Oh hey, um. Don't go over there."

"Why?"

"I'm still working out all the electrical damage that was caused when everything went kablooey. There's live wires and stuff. I have to finish grounding a couple of things too. Don't touch that piece of metal hanging down, like, at all. Unless you're into the whole death by electrocution thing, which to be frank, I am not."

Oliver glanced towards the metal and then noticed some large cables that were hanging down from a substantial hole in the ceiling. "Wait. Are you rewiring the basement?"

She shrugged. "A girl's gotta do what a-" There was a loud clatter behind them and Oliver turned back towards the main part of the room, his body alert. "Sara, everything okay out there?"

Felicity got to her feet just as Sara came walking towards them with an unsteady gait. "Ollie?" Her voice was raspy and she fell to her knees with a loud groan. They both ran to her.

"Sara, what happened?" Oliver asked, his hands clutching her face before he scooped her up into his arms and sprinted towards a med table. Sara was conscious but hanging limply in his arms. She looked really bad. Felicity raced for an IV.

"We needed to be stronger," Sara groaned.

Oliver hesitated for a moment before setting her down. "What are you talking about?" He asked, his voice strained.

"I took a sedative first," she said, her hand coming up to cup Oliver's cheek. "Don't worry."

"No!" He pulled back from her, his eyes narrowing. "What did you do, Sara?" His voice echoed loudly off the concrete.

"Oliver, what happened?" Felicity asked, arriving on the opposite side of the gurney.

Sara's hand began clutching at her own throat, her eyes going wide as she tried to gulp in air. "It's okay, Ollie."

Oliver took a step back, his mouth hanging open. "Dammit," he shouted. He took another step, backing into the table behind him. He turned in a fury. His hands went under the lip of it and he flipped it as if it weighed nothing. "Dammit," he roared over the clatter.

Oliver freaking out like that scared the pants off her, but Felicity didn't have time to deal with him. She worked quickly, hooking up monitors and shakily inserting a needle into Sara's arm for fluids. Sara's eyes started closing and Felicity gripped the girl's hand firmly. "I need you to stay awake, Sara. Tell me what happened." She let her eyes roam over the woman's body, checking for obvious wounds. There were no holes Felicity could see, no bruises.

Sara looked up at her, blood seeming to pool in her eyes, "We need strength to win."

Felicity looked at Sara and then at Oliver. "I don't understand."

Oliver rushed back and bent over the table, taking his girlfriend's face in his hands again, his nose brushing against hers. "No, no, no," he murmured.

"I'm not afraid," Sara whispered to him as her eyes drifted shut. "I'm not afraid."

"Keep your eyes open, Sara," Felicity ordered. She placed a hand on Sara's arm and then cried out in surprise when the woman's body suddenly arched high off the table.

"No," Oliver shouted, pulling himself back from her face and placing his hands on her shoulders. "Sara!" He pressed them down, trying to hold her in place as her body began to convulse.

Felicity watched in horror as her friend's body writhed uncontrollably, every muscle coming into sharp focus as they strained under her pale skin. She leaned over and whispered soothing words into Sara's ear, running her hand gently over the woman's head, stroking her hair, not sure what else she could do for her as she struggled. After a few tense minutes Sara collapsed back down, the fight leaving her as a breath leaked out of her mouth in a hiss. Felicity thought the worst was over, but then blood started leaking heavily from the girl's eyes. Oliver turned away.

"Oh, god," Felicity cried, reaching over to pull back Sara's eyelids. Only the whites were showing. "Sara! Sara can you hear me?" She smacked her lightly on the cheeks.

Diggle came tearing down the stairs, pulling his hood back and skidding to a halt between Oliver and the gurney. "What's going on?"

The monitor flat lined and Felicity placed her fingers against Sara's throat. "Oliver, there's no pulse."

Oliver's eyes went wide and he took a shuddering breath. He brushed past Diggle and reached over Sara's unmoving body, knocking Felicity's hand away. He felt for her pulse himself and then let his hand drop. He shook his head. "It's okay," he said, his voice softer and a little higher pitched than Felicity was used to. "She'll be fine."

Felicity shook her head. "Digg, she's not brea-"

"She'll be fine." The intensity of Oliver's voice almost convinced her. His eyes were wet with unshed tears and his knuckles brushed lightly against Sara's cheeks. "Come on, Sara. Stay with me."

Diggle darted over to the table, pushing Oliver out of the way so he could start giving Sara chest compressions. "Felicity what's happening?"

Felicity looked at him helplessly. "I don't know."

Diggle's solid arms bent over and over again as he tried to force Sara's heart back into beating. "Oliver!" He barked. "Tell me something, man."

Oliver looked up from the top of the table, his hand resting on Sara's head. "The Mirakuru," he whispered. "She took it."


	5. Chapter 5

**Authors Notes:** Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay, there was a lot more in this chapter than I thought there was going to be. I should probably split it in half, but I like a good long section and hopefully you do too!

Before we get to it, I wanted to take a moment to thank all the guests who have been commenting, along with the people who have their messaging turned off. I wish I was able to respond to you individually, but since I can't I wanted to let you know that I really appreciate that you have taken the time to share your thoughts. It means so much!

I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekends!

* * *

Sara came back to life just under an hour later, Oliver's name flying from her lips on a desperate gasp of air as she bolted upright. She looked around the room as she panted for breath, her hair mussed in a way that was anything but artful and her cheeks covered in trails of blood that had dried in grotesque patterns. She looked like a monster that had clawed its way out of a grave, like an extra that Buffy would show up to slay momentarily.

Felicity was perched on the edge of Oliver's desk and she glanced down at him uneasily, almost nervous to find he was still in his chair. He'd been stoic while they'd waited for Sara to come to, barely saying a word, or acknowledging his friends as he watched her. His agitation had been clear though, his fingers flicking against each other nonstop as waves of frustration radiated off him. He should have been rushing to Sara's side now that she'd stirred, but instead he was sitting there glowering.

Felicity didn't blame him. Barry hadn't gotten hit by lightening on purpose, but she sometimes found herself angry with him for still being asleep. It seemed to her that there were far better ways he could have gotten her attention. Flowers, for example. Or chocolate. Or making Oliver a pair of pants out of that mask stuff so she wouldn't have to deal with the aftermath of them splitting anymore. Not that he would know about Oliver's little pants problem. It wasn't exactly something they advertised. Regardless, even if she were a tiny bit angry with him, she would still be on the first train to Central City when he woke up. She guessed Oliver's hesitation made sense, though. When Barry woke up he'd still be Barry. There was no telling who Sara was now.

Sara's eyes finally settled on Oliver, and Felicity watched as they rounded, but whether it was in relief or fear she couldn't quite tell. "Oliver," Sara pleaded.

He rose from his chair, but instead of going to Sara he turned to Felicity. "Don't be angry with me. Or with her."

Alarm bells rang out in her head_._ "For what?" He closed his eyes for a second and when he opened them Felicity's stomach dropped. He was nervous, like, legit virgin on prom night nervous. She reached out her hand, letting her fingers skim down his arm. "Oliver?"

He turned away when Sara called him again, her voice still a little slurred from the sedative. "Ollie, please."

He was all motion then, closing the distance between them in three long strides as Sara swung her legs over the edge of the table. He hugged her for a long moment, letting her cry against his chest until she finally pulled back and looked up at him expectantly. The blood from her eyes was smeared on his shirt and Felicity stared at it idly, wondering if a stain like that could ever really come out.

"I'm sorry," Sara said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I couldn't tell you. But it was the right thing to do. I had to try."

The nod he gave her was small and sharp. "I know."

"I think," Sara began, her eyes darting around nervously again, "Ollie, if we have any chance -"

"You think I should take it." It didn't sound like a question. It was a statement and Felicity's heart skipped a beat at the surety of it.

Sara took his hand. "Yes."

Felicity's gasp broke the silence in the room and Diggle came up beside her, placing a firm hand on her shoulder. It didn't comfort her at all.

"Okay," Oliver said.

_'This,'_ Felicity tried to convince herself, _'is not happening.'_

* * *

They didn't talk about it any further that night. Instead they gathered Sara up and made sure she wasn't showing any adverse effects, which Felicity found a little bizarre. The serum turned people into physically strong but emotionally unstable rage monsters. How much more adverse could things get?

Over the next two weeks they watched Sara closely and even Felicity begrudgingly admitted her new abilities were kind of amazing. Aside from healing quickly, there was nothing she couldn't physically do, no skill she didn't seem to be able to fine tune. She threw spears further and hurled swords harder, shot arrows more accurately and crumbled bricks between her bare fingers, she flew up the salmon ladder faster and more aggressively than Oliver ever had, her muscles seeming to grow more defined with every rung she swung onto.

Diggle and Oliver worked with her constantly, setting up obstacles to frustrate her, thwarting her whenever and however they could so she would have to force herself to control her emotions. She worked hard and took it all seriously, as if her success meant they couldn't be mad at her for taking the serum. Sara confessed to them after her return to the field that she wasn't finding the transition overly hard.

"I don't know how to explain it. Oliver's presence keeps me grounded, maybe? I don't feel angry, most of the time, but when we're apart there's a frustration to finish what I'm doing so we can be together again. There's this constant pull to be near him." Felicity watched as Oliver shifted on his feet, clearly uncomfortable about being discussed. Sara didn't seem too thrilled about it either, though. She pulled at a thread on the hem of her tank top and hesitated before continuing on. "I almost feel bad for Slade, Ollie. If he still feels that draw to Shado, it must be hell."

Felicity supposed in a certain light Slade's devotion might be considered romantic, but she found it a little creepy. The guy hadn't even been with Shado. But maybe it wasn't his fault. Maybe the Mirakuru had taken a spark of emotion and turned it into a flame.

"So maybe we've been looking at this the wrong way," Felicity began. "Maybe the Mirakruru doesn't change you, so much as it highlights what you already feel? Slade loved Shado and he got all twisted because he couldn't put that energy anywhere?" She thought for a moment, "it's funny, because even if she had lived he would have ended up like that." Sara and Oliver looked at each other and the room grew somewhat awkward. "Not like funny, ha ha, you know. Just odd funny. Or weird funny. Funny like sad. Because she wasn't interested in him, right?" Neither of them answered.

Diggle nodded slowly. "And Roy struggled because he was an angry kid juggling too many secrets. He couldn't be honest with Thea about his life."

Sara considered it. "I also have more training than Roy did, but that could be right. Maybe it's different for me because I have Ollie here, and he knows everything about me." She smiled up at Oliver. "And it'll be the same for you."

Diggle looked uncomfortable. "It's still risky. Just because you're having an easy adjustment doesn't mean Oliver will."

Felicity agreed. When she'd first met Oliver he'd been darker and more prone to unwarranted violence. She wasn't naïve enough to think those qualities had gone away; he'd just gotten better at burying the instinct. If he took the Mirakuru he might lose that control.

Oliver took a deep breath. "I'll be fine, Digg."

Felicity adjusted her glasses on her nose. "You don't know that."

"I do. I can handle this."

"Oh, well if it's so easily handled, why don't we each take it?" Felicity asked a bit tartly. "I mean seeing as we're all such well adjusted people with no emotional baggage whatsoever. It should be a snap!" Diggle and Oliver both clenched their jaws.

"Felicity, this isn't-" Oliver started.

"No, Oliver. I'm totally ready for this. I mean, you might not have realized, but I rock a catsuit like nobody's business. I went as Emma Peel for Halloween four times and two of those times were in college. Where I won contests. At frat houses. I'm practically a legend." Diggle smiled at her.

"There's more to this than wearing a catsuit." Sara said with a dismissive shake of her head.

"You're right, accessories are important too. I've given this a lot of thought in the last five seconds and I'd totally be fine trading in my glasses for a purple mask. With pink sparkles. And a feather in the back, because feathers are terrifying. I for one can't even look at a marching band."

Diggle grimaced. "I'd rethink the sparkles."

"No way," Felicity scoffed. "Sparkles are bad ass."

Oliver sighed. "I'm not going to indulge this. You guys aren't taking it and we're not going to argue about it or discuss it again."

"Felicity taking it doesn't make sense, but my taking it does," Diggle said folding his arms over his chest. "I don't want to, but if you don't think we can beat Slade without juicing up we should discuss it."

"This isn't a game Digg." Oliver's voice had an edge to it.

"Who says I'm playing one? You tell me right now that I need to take it and I will. And I won't say another word about you doing the same."

Felicity looked between them nervously. "Um, no. Wait. This is also a terrible plan. Digg, what are you doing?"

"Maybe he should," Sara said, turning to Oliver. It's not the worst idea."

Oliver regarded her coolly. "He's not taking it."

"Then you shouldn't either," Diggle began. "Sara is more capable of being our muscle then Roy probably ever would have been and I didn't see you running to take this crap when he was in her shoes. She volunteered for the job. I don't see why we shouldn't respect that."

Felicity nodded breathlessly. "Yeah, what he said."

Oliver stared at them blankly. Or angrily. Sometimes with Oliver it was hard to tell. "This isn't open for discussion."

Felicity got up from her chair, her heart rate jumping, which seemed crazy since she was pretty sure it had been elevated since they'd started this conversation. Maybe she'd had too much caffeine. "Of course it's open for discussion. In case you haven't noticed, this is a terrible idea. And terrible ideas deserve to be discussed. And mocked. And I haven't done either yet."

Oliver walked over and slid his hands onto her shoulders. He voice grew softer as his blue eyes pleaded with hers. "It's not a terrible idea. Slade won't expect it. Sara is right, we'll have the upper hand for the first time. I'm ready for this. And we're out of time."

She knocked his hands away in irritation, her pulse thrumming tightly inside her skull. "No, Sara is not right. You are not right," she said, pointing at Sara, "and there's no way of knowing how he'll react to that stuff." Her finger moved towards Oliver, "And your judgment right now is cloudy at best." She rubbed at her forehead. "Back me up, Digg."

Diggle nodded. "This isn't a smart move, Oliver."

Sara had remained mostly silent on the topic over the last few days, but now she was frowning and watching them with anger in her eyes. "If we're going to beat Slade we have to be bolder than he is, not smarter. Otherwise he'll win. And as much as you don't like this plan, the plan where we do nothing is worse. Because that plan ends with all of us dead."

Felicity tried to think of something to say, but Sara was right. They had nothing to counter with. She looked over at Diggle hoping he'd pull an ace from his sleeve, but he shook his head at her subtly.

Sara laced her fingers together with Oliver's. "I know you're both worried," she told Felicity, her eyes getting calmer. "But we're not going to end up like Slade or even Roy. Ollie and I have each other and the strength of our relationship will keep us from spinning out of control."

_'Well, no pressure there,'_ Felicity thought, looking at Oliver.

"And while we're doing this, you'll keep working on the antidote. I'll be the first in line to take it when this is all done. But you said so yourself, there's no way it will be ready in time to stop Slade."

Felicity gritted her teeth. It was true and she hated that it was true. "You're right, it won't be ready. But just because one plan isn't panning out doesn't mean we have to throw the baby out with the bathwater."

Oliver looked confused. "What's the baby in this situation?"

Felicity rolled her eyes internally. "It's not a what. It's a who. And it's you. Obviously."

"Obviously?"

"Oh, please. I'm not calling you an actual baby. Babies don't have muscles. Or chest hair. Or look good in leather. It's just a stupid proverb. The point is that you guys aren't thinking this through. That cure may never come, we might not be able to undo this, Oliver. We could lose you."

Oliver held Felicity's gaze as Sara eyed her cautiously. "You know, for all the League's faults, they're extremely good at what they do. And that's because they understand that in order to win you have to be willing to sacrifice more than your enemy would. And that's what we're doing. We're giving ourselves the best advantage and meeting Slade on our terms now." Sara looked up at Oliver and smiled when he looked back at her. "We can do this, Ollie. We can save everyone."

He leaned down and kissed her and Felicity wanted to scream at them to stop being crazy and reckless and stupid and in love, but she just stood there quietly instead. How could she compete with all that and make him see reason? Her head started aching and she took a deep breath to calm herself down. It didn't help.

Oliver traced Sara's cheek with his finger. "Why don't you go take a shower and then we'll go home."

Sara nodded and then walked directly between Diggle and Felicity, her shoulders bumping theirs purposefully as she passed. Felicity huffed at Oliver in irritation. She waited until she was sure Sara was in the back before she began again.

"Oliver, you can't-"

Oliver's hand twitched and he turned, clearly annoyed that they were going to try again. "The decision has been made," he said, taking a quick breath. "I'm doing this. Tomorrow, if possible. I won't change my mind."

Felicity's heart leapt in her chest and refused to slow down. He couldn't do this tomorrow. Or next week. Or ever. She wasn't the slightest bit ready. "Would you have let her do it, if you had known?"

His shoulders tensed. "That's different.

"How?"

"It just is."

"So you wouldn't have let her?"

"No, Felicity. Probably not."

Diggle cleared his throat. "So what makes you think we'd just let you?"

"My life decisions aren't up for a vote."

"That's ridiculous," Felicity began, speaking quickly. "Your life is our life too. You love her- great! And okay, maybe you feel you owe her or something, but this is crazy. If Sara jumped off a bridge would you?" He opened his mouth and she immediately shook her head. "No, don't answer. That was a dumb question. You would, we all know you would, you'd jump and not think. Which, if it were to go after me, then yeah, okay, fine. Go ahead and jump, seeing as how I was probably pushed off that bridge and would be in need of a rescue. That's not hypocritical by the way," she said, taking a quick, shallow breath, her mind racing as the words began falling from her lips faster than she could process them, "because you'd be wearing a safety harness or a parachute or have a really long rope that those massive arms of yours could use to climb us back up to safety on. Oh and why would I have that Felicity?" She asked herself, her voice dropping low for a moment before rising back to it's normal range. "Oh, I don't know, Oliver, because I wouldn't want you to come after me if you weren't safe! And I'd totally kill you if both of us died. Not like this would probably even happen in the first place. Unlike Sara, I don't stand around on bridges just waiting to get pushed off. Not ever. I don't like heights or falling or water all that much- God," she gasped. "What was the point of this?" She looked at the two of them as she ran out of air and she drew in a frantic breath. Her heart was beating too fast and spots suddenly floated in her vision. She tried to remember what she'd just been saying but couldn't focus. It was something about Sara and bridges. Ugh, she hated bridges. She drew in one shallow breath and then another. "What's going on?" She asked them, her heart pounding even more rapidly in her chest and her hands starting to shake. Her head was swimming as she looked down at her trembling fingers. They seemed too far away from her body, like her arms had been stretched. She couldn't breathe and her hand fluttered up to land over her heart. "Oh, god. I'm having a heart attack."

Oliver and Diggle rushed over as she sat down in her chair. "You're okay," Oliver murmured as he kneeled down in front of her.

"No! I'm dying and it's your fault," she told him as Diggle pushed down on her back, forcing her head between her knees.

"Breathe, Felicity," Digg said softly, his hand rubbing her back. She followed his advice, taking in deep gulps of air.

"How do you feel?" Oliver asked after a minute.

"You're killing me with stupidity," she choked out. "I hope you're happy."

"Felicity." Oliver said her name softly, sadly, shushing her as his hand landed on her shoulder.

She took another deep breath and then sat up, her eyes full of tears. So much for her no crying or hyperventilating at work policy. She ignored her embarrassment and let the tears fall; the damsel in distress thing was sort of up Oliver's alley anyway. "Please, Oliver. Please don't do this."

His blue eyes shone with concern and he reached out and linked their hands, resting them on her lap. For a moment she thought it had worked. "Felicity, I can't let her do this alone."

Only she could be out damseled by a highly trained assassin. It would probably piss Sara off to no end to find out that Oliver thought she couldn't take Slade down herself. "She chose to do this alone," Felicity said quietly, her thumb stroking the back of his hand. "She knew it was a bad idea, which is why she didn't tell anyone."

He looked at their joined hands, his fingers flexing, straightening out and running alongside hers for a moment before he curled them down again. "When I started doing this, I chose to do it alone too. It was what I was used to. You two are the ones that taught me there was a better way. I know I can handle this, not just because of Sara, but because I have you and Digg to help me. Sara hasn't been part of a team before and I want to give her that. I owe her that, Felicity. I know what you're afraid of, but it's not going to happen."

She didn't believe him. Everything in her was screaming that this wasn't going to end well, but he had his determined face on. He was going to take the Mirakuru and her opinion didn't matter. _'Oliver Queen is not your boyfriend,'_ she reminded herself. And for the first time she thought that was really a shame. Not for her so much, but for him.

Diggle looked over to her, ready to follow her lead. "Okay," she nodded. "Okay."

* * *

Digg followed her out. "How do you feel?"

"Oh, you know. Awful. You?"

"We've had better days." He stopped walking and shook his head. "You know, we can't stop him if he decides to do this."

"I know."

"No matter what happens, though I'm going to protect you."

She nodded. "It doesn't probably mean as much, but I'll try to protect you too."

Digg smiled. "It means more." He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and resumed their walk to her car. "I want you to understand, though," he said his voice low and serious, "that protecting you might mean telling you when it's time for us to cut our losses and go."

She tensed under his arm. "What are you talking about?"

"Being a soldier is a tricky thing," he said, taking a deep breath. "You've got to be willing to die even when everything in you is telling you to live. It's freeing, in a way. But that freedom can warp people, make them risk more, make them decide that survival doesn't matter if they take the right people down on their way out. There are some men that end up running towards death more than they run away from it and if you follow them it's suicide. Right now that doesn't describe Oliver, but it might soon enough."

Her eyes filled with tears again. "Don't say that."

Diggle shook his head. "I'm not saying it now, but this could go real bad, real fast. And you need to prepare for that. I don't know what's going to happen with Oliver, but you and I are not going to be the second coming of Shado and Slade."

"It's not going to come to that."

He paused as they reached her Mini. "I won't bury you," he said quietly, his voice surprisingly emotional. "You're going to live a long, long life, Felicity Smoak." He pulled her to him, his arms wrapping around her in a tight hug. Her glasses dug into her face sharply, but she didn't pull away, she just squeezed him harder, offering her own strength up to her friend.

Eventually she leaned back and smiled at him, "You know, if you keep acting like this-"

The flash of a camera blasted them from the right and a photographer shouted, "Does Oliver know about your new boyfriend?"

Digg released her and took a menacing step in the paparazzo's direction but the guy continued snapping pictures. When Diggle advanced again, the photographer's survival instincts finally kicked in and he bolted. She watched as Digg gave chase, their darkened figures weaving through the remaining cars in the lot. Suddenly there were more flashes being reflected on the windshields of the cars. She spun around to find a group of photographers by the gates, all of them snapping away.

_'Great. Just flipping great,' _Felicity thought. "Digg, it's too late," she called, noticing that more flashes went off as he gained on the photographer. "Digg, let him go!" She watched as he slowed, his head turning and taking in the pops of light that were steadily breaking up the darkness. He circled back to her.

"Shit," he cursed as the flashing died down. "I'm sorry. That's on me. I was too distracted."

She leaned back against her car trying to pretend there weren't so many pairs of eyes on them. "No, I should have checked the security cameras before we left. Ugh," she groaned, "just when I thought it couldn't get worse, tomorrow morning I'm gonna be the new whore of Babylon."

"Well, maybe they'll lose interest in you and Oliver now."

"Are you kidding me? Oliver Queen's driver and executive assistant shtupping behind his back? That's a story I'd even read. That guy's going to make a fortune off those pictures. And you're about to make the front page."

He sighed heavily. "Sometimes I really miss Afghanistan."

* * *

Oliver was amused. "Something you want to tell me?" He asked, waving the paper over Felicity's desk as soon as he and his bodyguard walked off the elevator the next morning. Diggle rolled his eyes, she guessed he'd been hearing it the entire ride in.

She'd seen a few stories online already, but her eyes rounded as she took in the cover of the _Starling City Sun_. The whole front page was taken up by a shot of her and Digg in what appeared to be a very compromising embrace. His arms were locked around her small frame, her glasses had been knocked slightly askew, and her mouth was spread in a shy smile under the words, '_Two Timing Techie Quits Queen!'_

"Son of a-" she grabbed it from his hands, flipping open to the story immediately

Oliver jerked his thumb in Digg's direction. "Apparently this guy's never heard of the bro code."

"Bro code my ass," Diggle shrugged. "It's not like she was going to wait around for you forever."

Oliver didn't seem to find that funny at all.

* * *

Later that evening, Felicity couldn't imagine how it was possible they'd spent the morning laughing.

She watched as Oliver climbed up on the med table and had the sinking realization that all of this was her fault. It was her hubris that had drawn her to meet the hacker, her own hand that had brought the Mirakuru back into their world.

She should have burned it and she didn't understand why that hadn't occurred to her before. She could have done it the night Sara had dosed herself, could have gathered it up while Oliver had been distracted and thrown it into the furnace. She could have smashed all the vials onto the floor, one right after the next, and let the poison sink into the cracks of the concrete. She could have poured it down the drain or gone in a truly melodramatic direction and thrown it into the ocean or something. There had been options. Why hadn't she taken one of them?

"This is just the sedative," Sara said, swabbing a spot on his upper arm with alcohol. When he nodded she plunged the needle into his skin. She rubbed at the injection site for a moment, smiling at him before walking towards the back to prepare the Mirakuru. Digg was a few feet away charging the defibrillator, which was too nerve-racking to contemplate. Felicity wasn't doing anything aside from kicking herself, really. She felt entirely numb.

"Come here," Oliver said, beckoning her over. She walked slowly, taking her time, trying to think of a way to change his mind with each step, but nothing came to her. He gave her a small smile when she reached him. "Don't look so worried."

"Can't really help it," she shrugged. "I'm a worrier."

"Well, don't be," he said, reaching up and cupping her cheek, his thumb stroking her face lightly. "I'll be fine, Felicity."

She leaned into the touch. "You'd better be. I'll probably be mad at you if you die."

He withdrew his hand from her face as he shook his head. "I'm not gonna die."

He was most likely right, but his dying was only a part of it. "I know," she said as she thought for a moment. "But you'll be different."

"Not too different." He reached out and pulled her against him, hugging her tightly, fiercely to his bare chest. She felt the warmth of his body seep into hers as she buried her nose in his neck. He smelled good, like whisky in the winter, like safety, like home.

It was unfair to ask, she knew he didn't have any control, knew he'd only be saying it to comfort her, but she wanted the words anyway. "Promise me." Her lips brushed lightly against his skin as she whispered the request and he shivered, his hands splaying widely over her back.

"I'll do my best." He wouldn't coddle her and part of her appreciated it, appreciated being treated like a partner and not just a friend, but it stung all the same. She sniffed and thought that it might be okay for him to lie to her sometimes. He released her from the hug and they watched each other for a long moment.

She was losing him, she realized, had already lost him in some way, even though he was still sitting there breathing. He was going somewhere and she wasn't sure who he'd be when he got back. She might never see that soft smile he sometimes gave her when she surprised him; the one where his head tilted as if she'd made his entire world shine for a moment. Her eyes welled with tears as she leaned forward, quickly pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. "For luck," she whispered. When she stepped back, she smiled at the bright pink mark she had left and she reached out, sweeping her thumb over it.

He placed his hand over her wrist. "Leave it."

"Don't worry," she said quietly, "I'm rubbing it in, not wiping it off." Her thumb swept over his skin gently, the scrape of his beard not as rough under her touch as she had imagined it would be. When she was satisfied, she cradled his cheek in her hand. "Come back to us, okay? Don't do anything that will break Digg's heart. Or mine."

"I would never." He turned his face slowly into her hand, placing a soft kiss against her palm.

She closed her eyes, memorizing the sensation of his lips on her skin, wondering if it might be the last nice memory she'd have of him. Her eyes opened as he lowered her hand from his mouth and wound their fingers together. Her hand seemed tiny in comparison to his, almost delicate. He had a callous on the tip of his ring finger and it seemed strange that she'd never noticed it before.

Diggle approached them with an apologetic look. "You ready?"

Oliver dropped her hand and nodded. "I'll be okay, guys. Don't worry." Felicity stepped aside uncertainly as Sara returned, the syringe dangling from her fingers. Oliver took a deep breath and rested back on the table. "Do it."

Sara injected him without any ceremony and Felicity watched as his body convulsed moments later. For the first time there was no enjoyment provided by the expanse of his skin on display, no pleasure at the way his corded muscles rippled beneath her gaze. When his eyes began bleeding Felicity turned away.

She just should have burned it.

* * *

It had been two hours. Sara and Diggle still sat by Oliver's side, but Felicity had needed some space and had moved to her desk. The monitors were beeping slowly, steadily, but the beat didn't seem reassuring to her. She didn't understand why it was taking him so long to come to. There was no reason for it, unless he was trying to show up Barry. Which was really just so obnoxiously like him. She exhaled loudly, squeezing her eyes closed as she silently reprimanded Oliver for being an ass.

"Felicity," Sara said quietly, her voice breaking the silence and startling her. "I'm sorry you're angry."

Sara sounded resigned and Felicity's wanted to be able tell her she was wrong, but she wasn't. Not really. "It's okay," she said, shaking her head as she opened her eyes. "I'm not angry, exactly. I'm just…I'm a lot of things right now."

Sara swiveled in her chair to face her. "I know it seems scary, but he's going to be fine. I'm going to be fine. We're more disciplined than Roy was and we love each other. We're in the best possible position to deal with this."

Felicity didn't understand that confidence. "I don't know how you can be so sure." A wave of emotion ran through her, fear and sadness and anger and she wondered how it was that Sara could sit there so calmly. How she could take one look at Oliver lying on that table, his chest barely moving, his skin covered in sweat, and not be afraid that she'd made a mistake. "I don't understand how someone that loves him could ask him to do this."

There was a long silence. "He and I aren't like you. We're soldiers, warriors. This is just another tool for us. I wish you could understand-"

"Yeah, well I wish you had never come back here." Felicity interrupted. She supposed she could blame the words on her lack of a brain filter, but that wasn't true for once. She'd meant to say it; it felt good to say it. She pulled off her glasses and wiped a tear away with the back of her hand. "I wish he hadn't felt so responsible for you."

"We have a history."

"Oh, I'm aware," she said, slipping her glasses back on. "We're all aware, actually. But it's not a very good one."

Sara's head pulled back and she nodded. "I see."

"I doubt it."

Sara stood and took a few steps towards her. "If you have something to say to me, then say it."

Diggle looked up from the monitors, his eyes tracking Sara cautiously. "Felicity, this isn't the best time."

"Oh I think it is," Sara started. "Let's hear it."

Felicity knew she should keep her mouth shut, knew she was lashing out from her fear, but there was part of her that needed to say this, that needed Sara to know where they stood now. She rose, putting herself on level footing with the other woman before she began. "At least in the past your decisions only hurt people's feelings. But this, this could kill him and you don't even seem worried."

Sara laughed sharply. "I think you're jealous."

"Maybe," Felicity nodded. "Maybe sometimes. But not in the way you think. Not of your history, and not of your relationship. I wouldn't trade places with you, I wouldn't want to be responsible for this."

Sara's hands balled into fists and it dawned on Felicity that she might be in trouble. The woman's eyes were sharper and her mouth was hanging open, her breathing growing heavier.

Diggle stood and glared at Felicity. "Sara, why don't you come back and sit with Oliver?"

She ignored him, her eyes remaining on Felicity. "You don't have the right to speak to me like that. You don't understand our relationship or what we've been through. And you may think you know what Slade is capable of, but I promise that you don't. I do, though. I've seen it up close and personal and even after all these years he scares the hell out of me. This is the best way I know to give Ollie a chance at surviving. And as long as he does, I don't care what you think." She stopped and walked back to Oliver, her fingers ghosting over his arm, before she finally picked up his hand.

Felicity felt shame creep through her body. She hadn't thought there'd been a strategy at work here, which was stupid. Sara had been part of an organization that trained meticulously, that plotted and planned and only moved once every angle had been examined. But she had ignored that and jumped to conclusions. She'd thought the worst about Sara and what did that say about her? Her tongue felt thick in her mouth. "I'm sorry. I didn't think…I'm sorry."

Sara nodded. "If I had my way you'd both take it too," she said quietly, her eyes meeting Digg's for a moment. "But he won't listen. I suppose it makes me some sort of monster, but I don't think it's fair for you two to be defenseless."

Diggle reached across Oliver's body and rested his hand over hers. "We're not defenseless. You've got our backs." When he drew his hand away he looked pointedly in Felicity's direction and she sat down, feeling horribly embarrassed.

The monitors Oliver was attached to began beeping faster and Diggle scanned the readouts. "He's waking up."

Sara stroked his head, "Ollie?"

Much like Sara had done, Oliver hurled himself upright and took in deep gulps of air. His bloodshot eyes were panicked as they roamed the room. "Felicity?" he gasped, his eyes locking onto hers.

She nodded, a smile spreading over her face as she dashed to the foot of the table. "I'm right here." There was blood on his cheeks and his skin was clammy, but his chest was rising and falling in a steady and regular pattern. He'd never looked better. He nodded at her as Sara gathered him into a fierce hug.

"How do you feel?" Diggle asked, checking the monitors again.

"Strong," Oliver said, his voice surprised as he drew back from Sara. "I feel strong." He looked down at Felicity and smiled, but when she smiled back she caught Sara's eye. The woman was rightfully uncomfortable that she was there. Felicity nodded at her in a silent apology and then turned away, heading back to her desk while they checked Oliver over. After fifteen minutes she began gathering up her things.

Oliver called after her. "Where are you going?"

She looked up at him nervously, ashamed for the way she'd behaved while he was unconscious. He'd be ashamed of her too, once she told him, but that wasn't a story for tonight. No, right now he needed to rest and be with Sara. And her presence wasn't required for either of those things. "Home," she said, aiming for brightness as she hauled her bag onto her shoulder.

Oliver abruptly tore the sensors from his chest and jumped from the table, ignoring Sara and Digg when they tried to stop him. He ran to Felicity. "Why?"

She shook her head, a little surprised by how quickly he'd moved. "It's been a long day. And you were out for a while, Sleeping Beauty. I have to be back in the office in a few hours." She tried to take a step past him, but he reached out and caught her arm, his grip tighter than it normally was.

"I don't want you to go." He squeezed her arm a little more, holding her in place.

She looked down at where his fingers were wrapped painfully around her forearm. If he applied a little more pressure, he could break it. "Oliver, you're hurting me."

He looked down at his own hand as if it were foreign, as if it hadn't been attached to him his entire life and then suddenly released her. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I guess I don't know-"

"Your own strength? Well, you probably wouldn't right now," she said smiling even as she rubbed at the marks he'd left behind. "So don't run around squeezing people for a little while, okay? Or animals." She adjusted her bag on her shoulder and took a few steps towards the stairs.

"Don't go." His voice was tinged with desperation and when she turned back she was startled by the way he was looking at her, like he was lost and she was the beacon that would guide him home.

She saw Sara take a step towards Oliver and pushed down her own impulse to go back to him. "You're fine Oliver. They're just about done with the tests and then you and Sara can go home too."

He crossed into her space, his determination evident. "I need you to stay," he said, his voice too quiet for Sara or Diggle to hear. Her heart lurched in her chest at the sentiment, but the way he looked at her was making her uncomfortable. She glanced over at Sara who was watching them closely. "You're okay, Oliver. You don't need me," she whispered back, "I don't even know what half those tests mean. And I just can't be here right now. " She went to take a step, but Oliver blocked her path. "Oliver, please."

Diggle walked over and put his arm around his friend's shoulders. "Come on, let's get you some fluids and then get you home." There was a flash of anger on Oliver's face and his hands clenched tightly. Felicity had a moment of fear that he was going to hit Digg.

"Oliver," she said, her voice admonishing him. "Calm down and go with Digg. I'll see you tomorrow." Oliver stared at her for a long moment and she watched as he tried to process what she was saying. He looked over at Diggle and then at Sara before he let his eyes rest back on her.

"Tomorrow morning?" He asked, his voice starting to sound more stable.

"First thing."

He nodded, his shoulders relaxing a little as he finally allowed Diggle to lead him back to the med table. Felicity made her way up the stairs quickly, feeling a pair of eyes following her the whole way. Whether they were Oliver's or Sara's she couldn't exactly say.

* * *

When Felicity walked into the office the following morning Oliver was sitting at her desk. "What happened?" She asked in a panic, rushing towards him.

"Um, nothing. I was just waiting for you."

She stopped, eyeing him closely. "You were waiting for me." He nodded and she checked her cell. "Oliver, it's 8:45 in the morning."

"So?"

"So, that's about two and a half hours earlier than you've ever gotten in before."

"That's not true. I came in at 10:15 for a meeting with Walter once."

"Not when I was your assistant. Why are you in my chair?"

"Oh, no reason." He stood up as she walked to his side and they sort of did an awkward shuffle as she scooted past him. He didn't seem to leave her as much room as he could have and their bodies brushed against each other slightly. She set her tablet on its stand and then let her bag drop to the floor. He hadn't gone past the edge of her desk and was still watching her, which was making her nervous. "How are you feeling? Did anything happen last night after I left?"

"No and I feel good. I feel great right now, actually. I had a fever when I-"

Felicity's hand darted out towards his forehead and she pressed the back of it firmly against his skin, gauging his temperature. "You feel okay."

He nodded, swallowing hard. "Yeah, I feel better."

She let her hand drop away and then sat down, tapping her spacebar to wake her computer. "Okay, well, I was going to go get some coffee, but since you're here we could just get started, I guess. I have some expense reports that Mark would probably give me a kidney for if I got them in to him today. You feel up to working on that?"

Oliver nodded. "But we could still get coffee. Is that what you do, usually, in the morning?"

She looked up at him, her eyes suspicious. He was acting weird. Not like psychotic, I took this crazy drug last night and now I'm going to kill you weird, but sort of weird like he was when they'd first met. It was disconcerting. "Is this a trick to get me to get you coffee again? 'Cause it's not happening."

"No. No, I mean. I'll buy it. For you. The coffee."

"Wow. You are really out of touch, Mister. We don't pay for the coffee. It's in the break room downstairs. For free. It's what you people call a perk of the job. No pun intended."

"Okay, so I'll go downstairs and get it for us. You can stay here and get the reports ready for me to sign."

The Mirakuru had definitely addled his brain. "Okay. But I want my Beyonce mug today, which should be easy for you to find since it's the only mug in the cupboard that mentions Beyonce." He nodded, which wasn't strange exactly, except that it seemed like he was paying careful attention and might actually come back with that mug instead of the first one his hand landed on.

"You take cream and two sugars, right?"

She took a moment to honestly assess if she'd had a stroke in the elevator. "Well, I say I take two sugars, but really I take four. Five on a Monday. Don't tell Digg."

He nodded. "How many floors down?"

"Just one."

He pushed open the door to the stairs and disappeared through it and it was only when it had clicked shut again that she realized she hadn't warned him there was a Keurig down there. She laughed softly; it might be a while before he returned.

She was right, but 20 minutes later he was placing a Beyonce mug full of warm coffee on the corner of her desk. "Coffee makers have changed a lot in 6 years," he said sheepishly as he pushed the cup over to her.

"Sorry. I should have given you a heads up."

"I figured it out." He shrugged and reached into his pocket. "Cream and four sugars, but I brought you an extra just in case." He pulled out a sugar packet and placed it next to her cup with a wink. "I won't tell Digg."

"Tha...thanks," she stuttered.

He made his way into his office. "Let me know if you need a refill," he called over his shoulder. "And I'm ready for those reports whenever you are." He smiled at her through the glass and she nodded.

The world had clearly gone mad.

* * *

Oliver seemed to struggle more with the transition than Sara had, but it was only Digg that complained to Felicity. By the end of the first week, he was going out into the field and refusing to communicate, leaving Digg behind so he could pursue leads without him. By the middle of the second week, he would only train with Sara. The two of them wanted to do things faster, to be more aggressive and Diggle couldn't seem to find a way to keep either of them from running off. Felicity felt their lack of control in the field was a growing liability for all of them. In order for the plan to work, Slade couldn't know, couldn't even suspect, that they had taken the Mirakuru. He had to think they were weaker than they were, but neither of them seemed too concerned about it anymore. Sara in particular was eager to make her mark on the city and was secretive about where she was going and how she was rounding up the criminals she was basically leaving on her father's doorstep. Oliver was more interested in showing off, and would come back to the lair boasting about what he'd done, about how easy it had been to subdue a gang of dealers, or low level gun runners. He would smile when Felicity chided him for taking on any sort of mission. All of this was supposed to be practice. Until Diggle assured her otherwise she wouldn't believe he was really ready to be out in the field.

The strange thing was, he was exactly the opposite at the office. He was on time or early each morning, signed every paper and read every document she put in front of him, he kept track of his receipts, and they worked through lunch, discussing articles in the _Journal_ or editing the quarterly report over sushi or salads. He took an active interest in the applied sciences division based on her recommendations and started meeting with department heads from all over the company. He continued to be prickly with Isabel and had a tendency to blow off or cut short any meeting Felicity didn't physically attend with him, but it was still a very big turnaround and everyone was buzzing about it. People actually started smiling when he walked by. She didn't know what to make of it.

"You know," she teased Digg as they walked into the foundry, "If I had known the Mirakuru would make him more responsible, I'd have drugged him a lot sooner."

Oliver was beating the hell out of a training dummy when she hit the bottom of the stairs. "Where have you been?" He asked, throwing one final punch and sending the top of the dummy splintering across the room. He stalked towards her and Sara scrambled after him.

Felicity froze, confused as to why he was angry. "What are you talking about?"

"We left the office an hour ago. You said you were coming straight here."

She shot him a look. "I had to do a little defensive driving. A photographer was following me again."

Oliver's body locked up, his fists clenching. "Who was it? The guy from _The Sun_?"

"I don't think it's a good idea for me to tell you right now," Felicity said, cocking her head nervously as she tried to figure out how angry he really was.

"I'm not kidding," he growled, "tell me who it was." He took a step towards her and he seemed bigger, all of a sudden, as if he had grown. Her eyes ran over his bare chest in surprise. He was broader, she realized. "Jesus," she said as he stepped even closer. "You need to cool it with the salmon ladder a little." She reached out and squeezed his bicep, her eyes rounding as she felt the size of the muscle. "We're going to have to order a whole new costume for you."

His eyes flew to where her hand rested on his skin and he swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing almost violently. "It's not," he began, his voice growing husky, "it's not a…a…"

Diggle coughed. "A costume?"

Oliver nodded, but his eyes were glued to her hand as it slid across his chest. Felicity was all business, examining him like he was a piece of livestock. "Seriously, Oliver. This is ridiculous. People are going to think you're on steroids." Her hand fell away and Oliver took a half step closer to her, invading her space. She eyed him a little and then stepped away, looking at Sara. "You got bigger, but not like crazy bigger. Is he eating too much protein or something?"

Sara stared at her flatly. "I don't think so."

Felicity shrugged and made her way towards her desk. "Maybe it's just the difference between men and women." She plopped her bag on her desk and turned back to face them. They made a strange looking tableau. Diggle had an amused expression on his face as he watched Oliver, who was looking down at his own chest, his hand running the same path over his skin that hers had just taken. She wondered if he hadn't realized the effect the Mirakuru had been having on his body until she'd pointed it out to him. Sara was watching him too, but she almost seemed grief stricken. For a second Felicity thought the girl might cry.

"Sara?"

"Yeah?" She looked up and Felicity was taken aback by her appearance. There were dark circles under her eyes and her skin seemed paler. She wanted to ask if Sara was okay, but it didn't seem appropriate to call her out in front of the boys. "I found something I thought might interest you." It wasn't really specifically for Sara, but it would work.

Sara crossed to her as Felicity opened a browser window on her computer, pulling up a news site she'd been looking at earlier. "Do you remember Joseph Parganelli?" Sara nodded, stepping closer. "Well they found his body down at the docks last night."

Diggle came over with Oliver. "Parganelli. Why is that familiar?"

Felicity turned to him. "He was on trial for killing his girlfriend last year, remember? The one that disappeared. He said she'd gone to Mexico, but there was blood in his car."

Diggle thought for a second. "Right and they found him not guilty."

Sara nodded. "I read about it. It was news all over the country."

"So why do we care about his body turning up at the docks?" Oliver asked.

"Because," Felicity said, turning back to the screen. "He's not the only body that's turned up recently." Her fingers flashed over her keys and pictures of four different men popped open. "All of these guys were up on serious charges for violence against women and got off in the last six months. And they're all dead now. Each of them found near the docks. Detective Lance seems to think they were professional hits."

Sara's eyes narrowed. "He thinks they're related?"

Felicity shrugged. "Yeah. I'm thinking someone stole your old M.O."

Sara nodded. "I can't say I'm too upset about that."

Diggle leaned closer to the screen. "Still, if someone's taking these guys out we should be aware."

Oliver thought for a moment. "Is it possible there's a new player in town?"

"You mean a new vigilante?" Felicity asked. "Maybe. Could also be a copycat for Sara. People are definitely curious about her."

Sara nodded. "We'll look into it. But Oliver has more pressing news."

Felicity and Diggle both turned to look at him as Oliver exhaled sharply. "Sara and I have been trying to figure out the best way to make a move on Slade, but we haven't caught a glimpse of him since the funeral. "

Sara nodded, her face suddenly animated. "Lucky for us he's decided to come out of hiding."

"I got an email from my mother today," Oliver began. "Slade's throwing her a fundraiser in two weeks and we've all been cordially invited."

"Even me?" Felicity asked.

Oliver practically bounced on his feet. "Even you."

Diggle looked at Oliver and shook his head. "Why are you smiling? You know this is a trap, right?"

Oliver smiled. "Yes. And I say we spring it."

It became clear that the whole thing was dangerous. And very public. And Diggle was convinced there would be a better time. Felicity was no strategist so she was willing to defer to his judgment, but Sara and Oliver were not.

"There's going to be a lot of press, a lot of security, and a lot of people. Sounds like everything we'd want to avoid," Diggle pointed out.

Oliver and Sara exchanged looks. "Which is why he won't suspect that we'll make any sort of move," Oliver said, sounding mildly annoyed.

"Does it have to be at the actual event?" Felicity asked. "Maybe we can just use it as a way to follow him, you know. Put a tracker on his car."

"Or a bomb," Sara said under her breath. Diggle and Felicity looked over at her sharply. "I'm kidding." Based on the look Sara shot Oliver, Felicity wasn't sure she really was.

"Look," Oliver started, "we have a few days to decide. But we think this is our best shot. He's been quiet for weeks, but I guarantee he hasn't been idle. Even if he doesn't make his move there, he's not going to remain in the shadows for long."

Sara agreed and she walked away from the group, heading towards the locker she kept her gear in. "We should do some surveillance at the hotel tonight, Ollie. Scope out the best ways in and out and see what the security is like."

Oliver nodded. "You're right, but I was thinking I'd take Felicity."

Sara's head snapped up. "What? Why?"

He paused. "It's Friday night. People think we're dating. It wouldn't be unusual for us to be there for dinner. I could talk to the hotel manager, tell him I'm concerned about my mother and have him show me the space. Felicity can take note of the security systems and get information on their web capabilities. No one would think anything of it."

Sara nodded, but her entire body was rigid and Felicity didn't like the way her hands were clenching. She shook her head, "No, no I don't really think that's a good idea. We don't want Slade to think we suspect it's a trap, right? I think it's better for you and Sara to do it all cloak and dagger like. You can find out all the hidden stuff a manager wouldn't show us."

"Hidden stuff?" Oliver asked.

"Yeah, like secret passages."

"At the Four Seasons?"

"Maybe. For like the staff to maneuver through so the rich people don't have to get up close and personal with the unwashed masses."

Diggle nodded. "She might actually have a point."

Oliver crossed his arms over his chest. "I disagree."

"I'm not dressed to go somewhere fancy and I want to finish the cage tonight." She shook her head. "I'm not going."

Sara slammed the door to her locker. "Guess you're stuck with me then." She stormed to the back to go change. Oliver looked up, his eyes softening slightly as he watched her go, but he didn't move an inch.

"Oliver!" Felicity whispered loudly.

"What?"

"Go after her!" He looked at his feet and then nodded, slowly heading off in Sara's direction. Felicity walked over to Diggle. "God, he's so thick sometimes."

Diggle smirked. "He's not the only one."

"What does that mean?

He studied her for a moment and then shook his head. "Nothing. So how much is left of this cage?"

She walked to the back with a smile. "Just have to get the door on and do a little welding." She ran her hand over a piece of metal. "I love welding."

"You know, I got zapped the other day when I turned off the lights."

Her eyes narrowed. "Really? Hmm, that shouldn't have happened."

"And yet it did."

They walked over to the side of the cage where there were still cords hanging down from the ceiling, and copper wires poking out of places they shouldn't have been. "I should probably call an electrician."

"Can we really do that?"

"Um, no, no we can't. I'll just have to turn off the circuits and see what didn't get grounded properly."

Digg ran his eyes over the whole mess. "Anything I can help you with?"

"Nah. You take comm duty and I'll take care of this." She set herself to work, not even noticing when Oliver and Sara made their way silently out of the basement.

* * *

Two hours later, Felicity and Diggle smelled smoke wafting in from Verdant and then they could hear people screaming, _"Fire!"_ She grabbed her purse and then they raced up the stairs, her heart pounding from all the commotion she could hear above them.

They emerged into the lot carefully, making sure no one was around before they rushed away from the building. The air was definitely smoky, but there were no flames she could see. They made their way to the front, past the throngs of photographers who were snapping away as if this disaster was a gift, which she supposed for them it was. She scanned the crowd quickly, spinning around as she took in the groups of people that were scattered around the street. She couldn't find Thea. When she told Digg he took off at a run, pushing through the front doors and going inside as a cloud of black smoke puffed out.

She held her breath, watching the doors and waiting for him as the fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars rolled up. There was a wave of men that ran into the building, but no one was coming back out. She crossed her fingers, pleading silently with the universe for Digg to emerge.

He finally did, supported by a fireman and followed by another who was carrying an unconscious Thea. Felicity raced to them and watched as they were tended to, oxygen masks placed over their faces and grey blankets wrapped around their shoulders. They were both going to be fine.

She called Oliver.

He panicked, as she expected, but listened calmly when she told him not to come. She'd pick him up instead, away from the cameras and the police and with a change of clothes. She whispered to Diggle who nodded at her plan as he climbed into the back of the ambulance with Thea.

She turned and looked at the club. It didn't seem so bad, all things considered. But something told her it hadn't just been a kitchen fire.

She ran to her car and floored it, knowing Oliver wouldn' be patient. In less than 15 minutes she pulled up to the address he'd given her. She'd barely parked and unlatched her seatbelt before he was racing towards her, throwing his hood back and pulling his mask off as he yanked the door open. He reached in and hauled her out of the car, her hip banging painfully against the steering wheel as he hurried to pull her against him. "Are you ok?" His hands ran over her face and her hair, before roaming over her arms freely in a quick examination.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she said, closing her eyes as he pulled her back into a hug. "Thea and Digg are fine too, just a little smoke inhalation. We'll meet them at the hospital."

He pressed a kiss against the top of her head, his fingers sliding into her hair and holding her head firmly. "Thank god."

She opened her eyes and saw Sara standing slightly back on the sidewalk, looking uncomfortable and anxious. "Hi Sara," she said looking over the car and trying to pull out of Oliver's arms. He didn't make the slightest move to release her. She ran her hands from his neck down to his forearms, tapping her fingers against the cool leather that surrounded him. "We gotta get moving, Oliver."

He nodded, his arms falling away. "I have clothes for both of you," she continued, walking towards the back and popping it open. She reached into what passed as the trunk area of her Mini and grabbed a duffle bag before looking back up at Sara. She was still standing on the sidewalk. "These are my gym clothes, but they should fit you okay. And I still have your suit, Oliv-oof-" her words cut off as she stepped back and basically turned face first into his chest. "Oh! Sorry," she said rocking back, not expecting him to have been there. She tried to side step him, but his hand went to her neck and he rubbed it. His eyes were intense. "You're sure you're okay?"

She nodded, the feel of his fingers making warmth pool in her stomach. Oliver had grown into a tactile guy, but this was more than she was really used to. His thumb was running over her nape gently and his other hand had wrapped possessively around her hip, his fingers sliding under the edge of her shirt and resting against her bare skin. When she looked up at him his eyes were dark and worried, but there was something else there too. He stepped closer and she stepped back. "I'm fine."

His eyes narrowed at her movement. "What?" he asked, his fingers firm on her delicate skin as he took another small step towards her.

"Oliver," she said quietly on a nervous laugh, fully aware that Sara was behind them, "what are you doing?"

He never got the chance to answer. The flash that went off at the end of the alley might as well have been a bomb. They turned towards the offending light and she gasped. "Oh no!" She reached up and pushed on Oliver's face, forcing him to look away from the lens of the camera, but the flash continued popping. Sara ran up beside them, her body tense.

"Do you think he can ID us clearly from there with that lens?"

Felicity nodded, squinting as she tried to make out the details. "Yes." She pulled Oliver's hood up. "Do you have any cash on you? Maybe we can buy the card off him? Or intimidate him into giving it up?"

He kept his head down. "I don't think that's going to work."

Sara scanned the alley quickly. "He can't leave with those pictures. Stay here." She took off, running faster than Felicity had ever seen her move before. The photographer started moving towards them, taking pictures of Sara's approach even as she shouted for him to stop. When she finally reached him, she knocked the camera out of his hands with a high kick and it fell to the pavement in a clatter, the lens snapping off. She stalked him for a moment, the guy stepping backwards and shouting something that Felicity couldn't quite hear. Sara moved in close, her arms wrapping around the man in a quick jerky motion and then he collapsed to the ground in a heap. Sara turned and picked up the main body of the camera, opening the side of it and pulling the memory card out as she raced back to them. Oliver tucked Felicity behind him.

"What should we do with it?" Sara asked, holding the card out when she finally stopped in front of them.

Felicity tried to reach for it, but Oliver knocked her hand back. "Um, crush it," she said, mostly into his shoulder.

Sara eyed Oliver for a moment, her eyes questioning his actions, and then dropped the card to the ground with a dismissive shake of her head. She stepped on it, her heavy shoe grinding it into pieces. Felicity looked around Oliver's arm and up at the top of the alley. They needed to get out of there before the guy got up again.

Sara bent down and picked up the pieces. "That should do it." She looked at Oliver. "We need to go."

Oliver nodded. "You should go home."

"But Thea-"

"No. Go home, Sara. I'll meet you there later."

Felicity took a quick step to the side, squinting at the figure ahead of them. "Should we call an ambulance? That guy's still not moving."

Sara quickly glanced over her own shoulder. "Well, that's what happens when your neck gets snapped."

Felicity gasped. "What?" She took a step forwards, trying to see if the photographer was really that still. Maybe Sara was kidding, although why she would joke about something like that was beyond her.

Sara took a step towards her and Felicity froze, her skin breaking out into goose bumps from the look Sara was giving her. "I'm sorry, do you have a problem with that?"

Oliver's hands came to rest on Sara's shoulders and he positioned himself between them. "Go home, Sara. We'll clean this up."

She shook her head, her voice like ice. "I'm not stupid. I know what you're trying to do, Ollie."

"I'm not trying to do anything."

Sara's eyes narrowed and Felicity saw Oliver's arm's strain as he kept her from coming closer. He took several labored steps forward, pressing Sara back and away from the car. He leaned down, wrapping his arms around her tightly and then whispered forcefully into Sara's ear. After a few tense moments she nodded and then turned, running off without another word.

Oliver watched her go before turning back to Felicity. "Let's go."

Her eyes returned to the body. "What about him?"

Oliver sighed. "There's nothing we can do for him. I need to see Thea." He walked to the side of her car and slowly began to maneuver himself inside.

Felicity took a deep breath, her stomach rolling as the enormity of what had just happened washed over her. Sara had killed a man. And they were just going to walk away.

She should call the police. She should get out her phone and call the police right then and there. She reached into her pocket, her fingers tracing over the cool surface of her cell as she thought. They had to be smart here. Her eyes scanned the telephone and electrical poles that lined the streets. There were no security cameras on them that she could see. She looked for banks or delis or any other businesses that might have cameras facing out, but it was really just an underdeveloped industrial area full of abandoned warehouses. Oliver had chosen a good street to meet on. There were no prying eyes. No cameras that might have caught them. Her phone stayed in her pocket. The man's blood was on her hands now, too.

"Felicity!" Oliver shouted from the car.

"I'm sorry," she whispered into the night air, unsure as to who exactly she was apologizing to. She quickly headed back to the Mini, slipping inside and starting it up as he watched her.

"Are you okay?"

"No," she said, pulling away from the curb.

The body wasn't discovered until morning.

* * *

They all began fighting. A note had been left at Verdant the morning after the fire, shot into a wall with a black arrow telling Oliver, _"I'm done playing games, kid."_ It was enough to send both Sara and Oliver into a rage. They were out, hunting him constantly, taking risks and turning off their comms so they wouldn't have to deal with Felicity's worrying. Some nights they refused to check in and Felicity felt like a housewife who'd been abandoned at home. Her leads were ignored, her opinions dismissed and Diggle was brushed aside like a child that was getting in their way. The two of them were angry and obsessed, fixating on Slade the way he was fixated on them. It was Felicity's worst fear come to life; she could no longer reach Oliver. Her words meant nothing.

The night before the fundraiser Moira Queen called to tell Oliver the venue for the fundraiser had unexpectedly changed. There was some sort of issue now that the governor was coming and his security detail felt they needed a place they could lock down entirely. Diggle's jaw clenched as Oliver and Sara discussed it.

"I say it's fine. What's a few more body guards?"

Oliver nodded. "Felicity can pull up the schematics. And maybe hack us in to the security detail's emails so we can see what we're dealing with."

She probably could, but she didn't want to.

Diggle tried to be the voice of reason. "I think we should reconsider this. Go back to just being observers only. See what the move is and then react if we have to."

Sara scoffed at that. "You must be thrilled. Another night where you force us onto the sidelines."

"Hey," Felicity, chimed in. "Let's try to remember we're on the same team here. Digg is just looking out."

Sara shook her head and then ran her hands through her hair in exasperation as she looked up at the ceiling. "He's going to win."

Oliver crossed to her, his hand landing on her shoulder as he angled her towards him. "He's not going to win."

"Ollie, I don't-"

"He's. Not. Going. To. Win."

"He has resources we don't have and the ability to make decisions unilaterally, while we're stuck running everything through a committee." She glanced over at Felicity and Diggle but didn't seem the slightest bit concerned that they'd heard her.

At least Oliver was. "That's not fair."

"Isn't it? We're facing a threat here and your people want to bury their heads in the sand. We can't wuss out now. We need to take him out."

Diggle shifted on his feet. "Take him out? I thought you were done being an assassin."

"Don't pretend to be coy," Sara said, her voice cold and flat. "There's no way this ends without our hands getting dirty."

Oliver nodded. "She's right Digg and I don't really care how we take him down so long as we do."

Diggle's arms crossed over his chest. "So snapping his neck in an alley for example, would work for you?"

Felicity glanced around nervously. She really wished Diggle hadn't mentioned that. Oliver eyed her pointedly before advancing on them. "It would, actually."

Diggle shook his head. "We're not killers. We're supposed to bring people to justice, not eliminate them."

"Slade is an exception."

"Oliver, you're not thinking straight."

"I'm thinking just fine."

Sara made her way to Oliver's side. "No more pussy footing around, John. If you don't have the balls-"

"Hey," Felicity said sharply, cutting Sara off. "Digg has balls. Big ones." The word "huge" was about to burst from her mouth when she realized what she was saying and she swallowed it back, her cheeks flushing. Digg's eyebrows shot up and he and Oliver looked about two seconds away from bursting into a fit of laughter. The three of them looked at each other and she groaned, shaking her head a little. "Yeah, okay, that was bad."

Diggle patted her on the back for a second as Oliver laughed. For a moment it felt like things were going to be fine, like there were no problems between them. "We know what you meant. And you're right. Diggle's bravery isn't in question here."

Sara dismissed him. "All I know is that Slade doesn't fear him."

Felicity shook her head. "He doesn't fear you either."

"Yeah, well whose fault is that?"

Felicity was totally confused as to why she was angry. Slade wasn't supposed to fear them. He was supposed to think they were a bunch of weaklings so they could catch him unaware when he attacked. "I thought that was the whole point- to keep him underestimating you. What happened to not tipping our hand?"

"Look," Sara began, "if you have a problem with what I'm proposing then you can leave. That goes for both of you."

The mood of the room shifted, all the warmth disappearing into the air as if they hadn't just laughed together. As if they'd never been a team, or friends even.

Oliver nodded. "She's right. It's your choice. Slade dies tomorrow. You're either part of the team or you're not."

Diggle took a sharp breath and reached out his hand towards Felicity. She stared at it for a long moment, weighing her options. Diggle was right, he was usually right, it's not like that had aspect of their relationship had changed. This wasn't smart, not even slightly, and Sara and Oliver were out of control. If she left it might stop them, but what if it didn't? What if they went ahead and had no support? Could she live with herself if something happened tomorrow night and she had chosen to abandon him?

Oliver's eyes were heavy on her and she felt him take a step closer to her. "Felicity," he said, not even whispering. "I need you."

There'd never been a choice. Not really. She'd told him he wouldn't lose her and she had meant it. She looked up at Digg and shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry."

Diggle walked out.

* * *

A few hours before the fundraiser was scheduled to begin Sara posed as a bartender and went to scout the new venue. Slade was already there, she reported and the change of location hadn't been new for him. He'd taken over a whole floor of the hotel for himself and had been there for quite a while. She hadn't been able to bypass his security and the one time she'd caught a glimpse of him he'd been flanked by armed guards. Now that he wouldn't be entering or exiting the building, they'd have to take him out at the event. She thought their best option would be the one time he'd be fully exposed, which was when he would stand at the dais and introduce Moira. Felicity and Oliver began arguing heatedly about it as soon as Sara clicked off. Oliver refused to hear reason.

"Felicity," he shouted, his voice booming off the walls of the Foundry. "We don't have a choice!"

She swung around in her chair and stood up, straightening the skirt of her cocktail dress. "That's not true. You always have a choice."

"Nothing has changed. He needs to be stopped. Sara and I can end this. Now."

She felt her blood run cold. She knew he believed this. Knew that for Oliver things could sometimes be so black and white it was infuriating. She'd once been able to admire this clarity, but these days it only seemed to scare her.

"You don't even have a real plan now!"

"I thought I'd put an arrow in his good eye and then see what happened."

"Screw you, Oliver. You have no idea what's going on in that hotel. No idea who else is even in there with him. The ballroom is going to be packed, the Governor will be there and I don't know, he just happens to have his entire security detail with him. You'll never get a shot off and if you don't get caught you'll get killed."

She didn't even want to imagine how badly this whole night could go. If Oliver was arrested, it wouldn't matter whether or not his intentions had ever been noble. The number of bodies he'd wracked up in his first year as the Hood would be enough to put him in jail for life. Sure, it might be possible to create enough reasonable doubt for him to not be found guilty of those early crimes. There had been copycats and they could try to pin it on Malcolm Merlyn, but now, after so much time, when the copycats had ceased and the arrows were so specifically one person's, she knew that there would be no way to fight the evidence. Especially not if there were hundreds of witnesses.

"They'll never even see me."

"That's ridiculous. You and Sara are getting too cocky." It felt like an old argument at this point, but cocky didn't even begin to cover it. It was reckless and stupid and he was purposefully choosing not to see that. She rubbed the bridge of her nose. Her head was killing her and the contacts she was wearing felt glued to her eyeballs. "That's not even the point, Oliver. For god's sake, your mother will be there, your sister. Why aren't you getting this?"

"I get it just fine. You're the one not seeing the big picture. I'm doing what needs to be done."

She shook her head sadly. It was something Sara had been saying all week, that they held him back; that she and Diggle made him less effective. Sara had come to appreciate the way the League got things done. What was frightening was that Oliver was starting to listen.

Diggle had been calling her, texting her all morning, urging her to leave, but she hadn't been ready. She'd thought there was still a way to reach Oliver, but now? Now, she couldn't help wondering if she'd been wrong. She let her eyes run over him, the muscles of his arms larger than they'd ever been, so big they were straining the fabric of the white tuxedo shirt he wore. Usually she loved him in a tux, but tonight it was too cold, too arrogant. It reeked of the billionaire playboy when she needed her friend. "When you came back from the island the second time, you said you didn't want to be the Hood anymore," she said softly. "Tommy had called you a murderer and you didn't want that to be true. Do you remember?" Oliver's body tensed and he exhaled loudly through his nose. His eyes looked so hurt that she almost backed down.

"I am not a murderer."

"No, you're not. Not yet."

The tension was thick in the air, the seconds ticking away as they watched each other. Oliver ran his hand over his forehead and let it slide up into his hair and down onto the back of his neck. She'd hit a nerve.

His voice was soft when he spoke. "Do you know what I think about when I think of Tommy, Felicity?"

"What?" She asked gently.

"I think about how I should have killed his father," he started, his voice building in anger as the words tumbled out. "I think about how I should have ended him as soon as I'd suspected. I knew what he was, but I didn't face it and if I'd just taken him out Tommy would still be here!" He shouted the last part of the sentence, his face red and his eyes manic. He took a step towards her, lowering his voice but not losing the rage. "By sparing his life, I gave him the opportunity to destroy the Glades, to kill all those people. That's what Tommy's death taught me!" He turned, grabbing his tuxedo jacket off the back of a chair as he started walking away from her.

She looked around the room, watching him march towards the stairs and the sense of disappointment was so overwhelming she could have fallen to her knees. It had all been for nothing, all these years of holding him up, all these weeks of trying to keep him from turning into a monster. Digg had been right to go. Her voice was shaky, "If you do this Oliver…"

He froze on the steps, keeping his back to her "If I do this, what?"

She swallowed hard and made a decision. "I won't help you anymore."

There was silence in the room and she was afraid he might be so far gone that he wouldn't care. He surprised her by turning around to face her and slowly walking back down the stairs. He tossed the jacket back on the chair. "Don't say that."

"Why?" She walked towards him forcefully, her fancy heels clicking loudly, stopping when they were an arm's length apart. "Because you've got this crazy idea that my staying here absolves you of your sins? You're wrong Oliver, it doesn't. I can't save you. And it's not my reason for living or why I'm here. I mean, yes, it's partly why I'm here, I don't want you to die, but I didn't sign up to be your emotional savior. I'll pull your ass out of the fire, but that's it. I'm not your mother or your sister or Sara or the therapist that you definitely need. I'm your friend-"

"I know that Felici-"

"Clearly you don't," she said feeling anger and frustration rising in her as she took another step towards him. "Because no matter how many times I tell you otherwise, I still think you think I'm in love with you. Well let me make it clear to you one last time," she said loudly, jabbing her finger against the hard muscle of his chest. "I'm not."

He knocked her hand away and then grabbed it, using the force to pull her flush against him. "Oh yeah?"

A laugh escaped her, sharp and bitter as she shoved herself away from him. "Unbelievable," she said, stumbling backwards on her heels a little. "You've got a lot of nerve. I mean, the ego on you!" She felt her blood boiling and for the first time she seemed to understand exactly what she felt for the man standing before her. "Oliver, right now I don't even like you."

He advanced on her, crowding her space, his voice low and unforgiving. "I don't believe that, Felicity," he said as she took several steps back. "I think you've wanted me from the first moment we met. I think you still want me now."

She forced herself to stop moving. He was fooling himself if he thought he could use his size to intimidate her. That hadn't worked before the Mirakuru, and she'd be damned if it would work now. "No! No, you shut up," she said taking a step towards him this time. "You stop talking and listen to me! Once upon a time I had a crush and you can throw it in my face if you want, but I'm not embarrassed to have cared about you. You come back from the dead and walk into my office with your head all tilted and your arms the size of coconuts and you start this little game with me," she took another step and watched as his eyes narrowed. "And I knew it was a game, Oliver. Always. And I couldn't figure out what was going on and I didn't know the rules, but it was nice to have the attention. Nice to have you deem me worthy of these fun little puzzles, and then! Then when you get shot you're in my car and my whole life is suddenly all about trust and earning your approval and being in this intense little club where I learn first aid and you walk around half naked all the time. Who wouldn't get a little bit caught up in that? And was it inappropriate that maybe I stared at you while you swung around on the salmon ladder? Or hit things with a giant hammer? Well, yes. I've told you before that you could've created a nice little sexual harassment suit from my ogling you. But the thing you never seem to appreciate is that you liked it! You wanted the attention. You always made sure I could see-"

Oliver's eyes grew wide. "I did not!"

"Really?" She barked out, finally done playing nice. "You're gonna deny that? I mean, come on! Not once did you put a shirt on! I don't even look at you like that anymore, but it's still a never-ending gun show around here. You love the attention. You specifically love it from me. In fact, if I didn't know better I'd say the one who acts like they've got a crush is you!"

He grabbed her. One of his hands wrapping around the back of her neck and the other her waist as he slanted his mouth over her own. She went stock still from the shock, her body stiff and unyielding. He licked along the seam of her mouth and she felt her eyes welling with tears, but she offered no other reaction. He dug his fingers into her side and shook his arm forcefully, insistently, jarring her into finally responding. The motion was like a tidal wave and she gasped, falling into him further, opening her lips and sliding her tongue into his mouth as her own arms wrapped around his neck fiercely, not willing to let him move from the spot.

His hand fell from her face, and he ran it down her back until it slid hungrily over her ass. He squeezed, pulling her against his body, letting her feel his desire while his lips skirted over her neck, sucking her skin lightly. She looked up at the ceiling helplessly, her heart racing and she licked her lips as she worked to catch her breath. What were they doing? What was she doing? He caught her mouth with his again as he reached down, lifting her up without effort and she moaned into his kiss, the skirt of her dress ripping loudly along the back slit as her legs eagerly wrapped around him. His calloused hands slid over the backs of her thighs making her shiver and she dug her ankles into his backside, holding him tightly in place against her. He rocked his hips against her heat slowly and she yanked at his hair, wanting him inside her so badly she thought she might devour him right then and there. Her tongue fought with his, tangling furiously over and over. She nipped at his lips, angry and sad and not sure why this was happening, but hoping it wouldn't stop, hoping she could use this to keep him there and safe, with her.

He backed them against a wall, the cold concrete seeping through the thin satin of her dress, making her shudder as he leaned his full weight against her. His body was solid and warm and ready for her and she rolled her hips, feeling wanton, feeling like it was only fair for him to know exactly what she was after. His hands roamed again, plucking open the delicate buttons that secured the front of her dress so he could lean down to press hot kisses against the tops of her breasts. Her own hands slid over his head, feeling the softness of his freshly buzzed hair, her pale pink nails lightly scratching against his scalp as she pressed soft kisses against his crown over and over. Words tumbled out of her mouth but she had no awareness of what she was saying. He finally looked up, his eyes softening as he ran his thumb across her cheek. "You're crying."

She nodded, a sob falling from her mouth until he pressed his lips to hers and caught it. He swallowed her sorrow, taking it inside himself and she wondered if it would grow there, if it would pull him into darkness even further. He murmured against her lips, "Don't cry, Felicity. Please, don't cry."

She rocked her hips against him, knowing what this was, knowing it was reckless, but finally wanting to be selfish. The whole world was still out there. Sara would be waiting for him along with death and violence, and she couldn't save him.

She could only have him once, now, before he turned into something she would no longer recognize. She ran her hand down his chest, "I want to feel you," she whispered pushing his suspenders off his shoulders and down to his arms. He yanked free of them as her fingers fumbled over the studs securing his shirt. He pulled them away gently, placing kisses against her fingertips before gripping each side of the crisp white fabric and giving a sharp tug. The studs and buttons flew free, scattering over the floor with delicate pings all around them. Her eyes ran over his chest and she leaned down, swirling her tongue over a nipple before sucking it firmly between her lips and scraping it sharply with her teeth. His knees buckled slightly.

She reached her mouth up and kissed him, her hands roaming under the back of his open shirt, feeling his muscles ripple under her touch as she swept her fingers over and around his sides. Her fingers traced his waistband and then trailed over his fly, feeling his length. "I need you," she whispered against his mouth, afraid he might not ever know how fully she meant that. "I need you right now."

He nodded, helping her undo his trousers and then tearing her underwear away in one easy motion. He slid inside her without hesitating and for the first time in her life she thought she might truly love someone. Everything felt perfect and terrible, there was so much she could lose, but so much she could win if only he'd let her. He thrust hard and stars burst behind her eyelids, her head falling back against the concrete with a dull thud. His hand slid up to protect it as he moved more deeply inside her, and their faces pressed closer, noses bumping against each other, open mouths brushing with every perfect arch he took into her body. He closed his eyes and she shook her head, "Look at me," she murmured, "look at me."

He pulled back a little, and she watched as he took all of her in. She wondered if he was surprised to see her as a woman, finally. A woman who wasn't ashamed or timid or bumbling as she purposefully tightened around him. His eyes were dark and intense, his pupils blown, and he gave a rough cry before kissing her again. "I love you," he said breathlessly, tearing his mouth from hers. Their eyes met and she nodded, the tears still falling as she accepted his words, knowing they were true, that they'd been true for as long as she could remember. He kissed her softly and she lost herself in him.

* * *

Later, he would leave.

"I'm on my way," Diggle said when she called him.

She didn't cry once while she waited.


End file.
